Stygimoloch

Stygimoloch Temporal range: Upper Cretaceous 70–66 mya
Reconstructed skull at the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Clade:	Dinosauria
Order:	†Ornithischia
Suborder:	†Pachycephalosauria
Family:	†Pachycephalosauridae
Genus:	†Stygimoloch Galton & Sues, 1983
Species:	†S. spinifer
Binomial name
Stygimoloch spinifer Galton & Sues, 1983
Synonyms
Dracorex? Bakker et al., 2006

Stygimoloch was a plant-eating dinosaur that had bony spikes and knobs on its skull. This bipedal dinosaur lived during the late Cretaceous period, about 70 million to 66 million years ago.

Like other pachycephalosaurids, Stygimoloch was a bipedal herbivore with an extremely thick skull roof. It had long hindlimbs and small forelimbs. Stygimoloch probably head-butted as a defense and in rivalry.

22% of all domes examined had lesions suggesting osteomyelitis. This is an infection of the bone resulting from trauma. So pachycephalosaurid domes were probably used in intra-species combat.

Stygimoloch fossils were first discovered in North America, in Montana and Wisconsin. The first was discovered in Hell Creek, Montana and was named in 1983 by Peter M. Galton, a British paleontologist and Hans-Dieter Sues, a German paleontologist.