Writing About Weird Dinosaurs

From Horner and Goodwin, 2009

There were plenty of opportunities to pick the brains of many paleontologists about the solution to the Stygimoloch phylogeny problem. However, there were really no reasons to do so because there were so many papers written that will allow the reader to make their own inferences and come to their own conclusions about the dinosaur. These include papers on the cranial anatomy of the dinosaur, cranial histology, and even descriptions of cranial remains (admittedly these are discussed as Pachycephalosaurus elements). The focus is, as we would expect, entirely and completely on the thick head of Stygimoloch and its morphology. That morphology is what led to the paper that most people know about in relation to Stygimoloch. That paper, found here on PLoS One, made an enormous public impression and much ado was cast about dinosaurs in the fall of 2009. It led to interesting illustrations such as the one shown to the left that exhibit the proposed ontogeny of Pachycephalosaurus described in the paper.

References:

Horner, J. R., & Goodwin, M. B. 2009. Extreme cranial ontogeny in the Upper Cretaceous dinosaur Pachycephalosaurus.