List of thyreophoran type specimens
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This list of specimens is a comprehensive catalogue of all the type specimens and their scientific designations for each of the genera and species that are included in the clade thyreophora.
Thyreophora is a clade of ornithischian dinosaurs united by, and named for, the presence ossified armor which forms parasagittal rows on the dorsal side of the animal. They were among the first dinosaurs known to science, with the genus Hylaeosaurus being one of the first genera referred to "Dinosauria" by Sir Richard Owen alongside Megalosaurus and Iguanodon in the early 19th century.[1] However, the clade thyreophora itself was recognized in 1915 by Franz Nopcsa. It was created to include the stegosaurs, ankylosaurs, and a few other primitive armored animals like Scelidosaurus and was named after the Greek words for "shield-bearer".[2]
This is the longest-lived individual clade of ornithischians. They first appear at the very start of the Jurassic as small, bipedal animals,[3] similar to all other ancestral dinosaurs. However, they radiated very quickly and were the second group of herbivorous dinosaurian megafauna to evolve (after the sauropods).[4] There was some apparent decline in their diversity with the extinction of the stegosaurids in the early Cretaceous,[5] but this was followed by the emergence of two lineages of megafaunal ankylosaurs (nodosauridae and ankylosauridae), which both persisted to the very end of the Cretaceous.[6] Thyreophorans were cosmopolitan in their distribution, and their remains can be found on every continent, including Antarctica.[7]