page_title: Stegosaurus
section_title: Paleobiology
hierarchical_section_title: Stegosaurus / Paleobiology
caption_attribution_description: Specimens of Allosaurus fragilis (DMNS 2249) and Stegosaurus stenops (DMNS 1483), Denver Museum of Nature and Science, as re-mounted under the supervision of Ken Carpenter in 1995. The juvenile Stegosaurus are largely reconstructed.
context_page_description: Stegosaurus, from Greek stegos which means roof and sauros which means lizard, is a genus of herbivorous thyreophoran dinosaur. Fossils of this genus date to the Late Jurassic period, where they are found in Kimmeridgian to early Tithonian aged strata, between 155 and 150 million years ago, in the western United States and Portugal. Of the species that have been classified in the upper Morrison Formation of the western US, only three are universally recognized; S. stenops, S. ungulatus and S. sulcatus. The remains of over 80 individual animals of this genus have been found. Stegosaurus would have lived alongside dinosaurs such as Apatosaurus, Diplodocus, Brachiosaurus, Allosaurus, and Ceratosaurus; the latter two may have preyed on it.
  These were large, heavily built, herbivorous quadrupeds with rounded backs, short fore limbs, long hind limbs, and tails held high in the air. Due to their distinctive combination of broad, upright plates and tail tipped with spikes, Stegosaurus is one of the most recognizable kinds of dinosaurs. The function of this array of plates and spikes has been the subject of much speculation among scientists.
caption: Adult and juvenile S. stenops mounted as if under attack from an Allosaurus fragilis, Denver Museum of Nature and Science
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