Named By: | K. Carpenter, D. W. Dilkes & D. B. Weishampel in 1995 |
Time Period: | 87-82 Ma |
Location: | USA, Kansas - Niobrara Formation [Smoky Hill Chalk Member] |
Size: | Roughly about 6.5 meters long |
Diet: | Herbivore |
Fossil(s): | Partial remains of several individuals |
Classification: | | Chordata | Reptilia | Dinosauria | Ornithiischia | Thyreophora | Ankylosauria | Nodosauridae | |
Niobrarasaurus (meaning "Niobrara lizard") is an extinct genus of nodosaurid ankylosaur which lived during the Cretaceous 87 to 82 million years ago. Its fossils were found in the Smoky Hill Chalk Member of the Niobrara Formation, in western Kansas, which would have been near the middle of Western Interior Sea during the Late Cretaceous. It was a nodosaurid, an ankylosaur without a clubbed tail. It was closely related to Nodosaurus.
The type species, Niobrarasaurus coleii, was discovered and collected in 1930 by a geologist named Virgil Cole. It was originally described by Mehl in 1936 and named Hierosaurus coleii. It was then re-described as a new genus by Carpenter et al. in 1995. In 2002 the type specimen was transferred to the Sternberg Museum of Natural History, Hays, Kansas.