Niobrarasaurus

Niobrara lizard

• Niobrara · Ponca (via place name) · Niobrara River/Formation; 'running water'
• sauros · Greek · lizard

The name combines "Niobrara", the Niobrara Formation (Chalk) in Kansas where the fossil was found, with the Greek "sauros" meaning lizard. Niobrara is itself taken from the Niobrara River, a name derived from a Native American (Ponca) term often translated as "running water". The name therefore means "Niobrara lizard", after the rock unit that yielded the only known specimen.

Named by

Carpenter, Dilkes and Weishampel

Year named

1995

Period

Late Cretaceous

Stages

Coniacian – Santonian

Found in

Smoky Hill Chalk Member, Niobrara Formation, Gove County, Kansas, USA

A nodosaurid ankylosaur (armoured dinosaur). The type species is N. coleii, originally described by Mehl in 1936 as Hierosaurus coleii and moved to its own genus in 1995. It is known from a single partial skeleton. Some details, such as the exact stage range, are from memory and should be checked against the primary literature.