Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Sauropsida
Superorder: Dinosauria
Order: Ornithischia
Suborder: Cerapoda
Infraorder: Ornithopoda
Family: Hypsilophodontidae
Subfamily: Thescelosaurinae
Genus: Thescelosaurus

This animal was a small ornithopod that lived in the late Cretaceous right up until the K-T boundary. Reaching a maximum length of 4m, Thescelosaurus was bipedal with a well-built body and strong musculature. Unlike many other ornithopods, it did not have recessed batteries of grinding teeth, but relied on non-specialized leaf-like teeth to process material. This may indicate it was much less selective in its feeding habits as some other related genera.

Type Species: Thescelosaurus neglectus

Gilmore, CW. (1913). A new dinosaur from the Lance Formation of Wyoming. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections Vol 61, No. 5, pp. 1–5.

Type Specimen: USNM 7757. National Museum of Natural History, Washington DC, USA.

Locality:

Lance Formation, Wyoming, USA.

Scientific Resources:

Butler, RJ; Upchurch, P; and Norman, DB. (2008). The phylogeny of the ornithischian dinosaurs. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, Vol. 6, pp. 1-40.

Galton, PM. (1974). Notes on Thescelosaurus, a Conservative Ornithopod Dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous of North America, with Comments on Ornithopod Classification. Journal of Paleontology, Vol. 48, No. 5, pp. 1048-1067.