1.8" Pachycephalosaurus Skull Fragment - Alberta (Disposition #000028)

 

First a note on the legality of this fossil. Alberta has very strict laws pertaining to fossil collection. Fossils may not be removed from the province of Alberta without permission from the government. To gain ownership of a fossil, you must be issued a Disposition Certificate. Currently only a few fossil types are eligible for disposition. These include ammonites, petrified wood, leaves and fossil oysters.

This specimen is part of a collection of dinosaur material that was collected by a single individual (Steve Walchina) decades ago prior to the current law. Because it was collected before the law went into effect, the collection was "grandfathered" in. The collection was reviewed by the Royal Tyrrell Museum and a disposition certificate issued for portions of it that were not considered scientifically significant. This moved the fossils into private ownership and allowed them to be removed from the province. The disposition certificate (#000028-29) is on file with the Royal Tyrrell Museum. This makes the small amount of Alberta dinosaur fossils we recently acquired from this collection some of the only legal Alberta dinosaur material on the market.

Pachycephalosaurus was a medium sized herbivorous bipedal dinosaur from the latest Cretaceous North America, notably including the Hell Creek Formation. Pachycephalosaurus is a genus that has had much controversy taxonomically. The two contemporaneous genera stygimoloch and dracorex have undergone much scrutiny to determine whether they are valid species or if they are actually juvenile growth stages of Pachycephalosaurus. Most current consensus suggests that they are, making Pachycephalosaurus the predominant Pachycephalosaur of the Hell Creek Formation.

Pachycephalosaurus was a bipedal dinosaur that lived during the Late Cretaceous period and probably was about 15 feet in length.

Pachycephalosaurus had a distinctive, large, bony, dome on top of it's skull up to 10 inches thick to cushion it's brain from impacts.

Some paleontologists believe this thick skull may have been used for head-butting, much like rams while others contend it may have been a sexual display.

It was one of the last non-avian dinosaurs before the K-T extinction event, 65 million years ago.

There is only one known species of Pachycephalosaurus, Pachycephalosaurus wyomingensis. It's remains have been found in Montana, South Dakota and Wyoming.

It was either a herbivore or an omnivore with small leaf shaped teeth which would have been very effective at shredding plants.