This place is going to be Theropod Central for a bit (until the huge volume of ceratopsians kick in), so here’s an ankylosaur to keep things ticking over. As usual, enthralled though I was with the exhibitions, I didn’t pay that much attention to the various signs or details of some of what I was looking at. As a result I don’t know all the identifications exactly and when it comes to things like these guys, well it’s hardly my best subject either.
Happily however, Victoria Arbour has just published a monster paper with Phil Currie on the taxonomy and identity of North American ankylosaurs and is also furiously blogging about it. So hop on over to her blog and start reading up on them. Handily there’s guides to the various parts of the skulls and rings of armour on the neck too which will really help out here. So while I’m obviously being too lazy to look it up myself, I’ll claim I’m inspiring readers to learn how to do it themselves.
Late edit: Victoria has joined in the comments to point out this is a nodosaur, and thus not in her review. D’oh. Still, go read her series anyway, it’s ace, and look at the pretty nodosaur skull (also ace). It is Edmontonia.
Dave Hone's Archosaur Musings 
The paper was interesting. Ankylosaur stratigraphy looks odd. Remarkably, it seems Anodontosaurus was already present in upper Dinosaur Park time c 75 MYA, and persisted into the early Maastrichtian, several million years later. Strangely, Scolosaurus disappeared around the start of Dino park time, before the appearance of E. tutus but reappeared in upper Two Med time, before the bearpaw.
It’s true, some of the strat is odd. However, keep in mind that some of the changes may reflect environment more than time. Also, the upper Dinosaur Park Formation does start to look very Horseshoe-Canyon-ish, in terms of the species present.
With regards to the above ankylosaur – it’s an Edmontonia (a nodosaur), which unfortunately I do not cover in my review of Euoplocephalus. We’ll have to wait for Mike Burns to finish reviewing the DPF nodosaurs to see how this specimen shakes out! I think it is on display as an E. rugosidens.
Errr, oopsie. Thus making my referral to your recent series and paper (v. good btw) rather irrelevant.
With regard to ceratopsids, there’s more of a “Horseshoe Canyonish” look in the upper Two Medicine than in the upper DP.
So it seems ankylosaurid turnover was rapid early in Dino park time but subsequently there was a long period of stability. And that despite some regression–look at the difference between the lower Horseshoe Canyon, with its “near-marine” Edmontosaurus, and levels 3 &4. So I dunno if degree of moisture explains it all. Of course it explains much:
Dyoplosaurus is most closely related to Baynshirenian taxa–Talarurus and Tsagantegia. No doubt, if North America got as dry as Mongolia, we’d see something like Pinacosaurus.
Just a head’s up Dave. You wrote Edmontosaurus instead of Edmontonia up there.
It’s going well this one is it….
Dave, may I ask what huge upcoming volume of ceratopsians you’re referring to in the text?
You’ve misread that, or I’ve not made it clear. I meant that there is a huge volume of ceratopsian material in the galleries and I’m going to be covering it at some point on here, not there is a volume of papers on ceratopsians coming. There is however a volume of hadrosaur papers coming but that’s a different issue.
CORRECTION: in the last sentence of my last comment above, substitute “the Djadokhtan environment” for “Mongolia.” 🙂