biology

Hoplitosaurus

Hoplitosaurus is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Hoplitosaurus rather than just read about it. In short: Hoplitosaurus (meaning "Hoplite lizard") was a genus of armored dinosaur related to Polacanthus. It was named from a partial skeleton found in the Barremian (Early Cretaceous) Lakota Formation of Custer County, South Dakota.

Key takeaways

Hoplitosaurus belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Hoplitosaurus to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Hoplitosaurus from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Hoplitosaurus (meaning "Hoplite lizard") was a genus of armored dinosaur related to Polacanthus. It was named from a partial skeleton found in the Barremian (Early Cretaceous) Lakota Formation of Custer County, South Dakota. It is an obscure genus which has been subject to some misinterpretation of its damaged remains. Although there was a push to synonymize it with Polacanthus in the late 1980s-early 1990s, Hoplitosaurus has been accepted as a valid albeit poorly known genus in more recent reviews.

History and Taxonomy The holotype specimen, USNM 4752, was discovered in 1898 by Nelson Horatio Darton, near Buffalo Gap Station, and consisted of ribs, caudal vertebrae, part of a right scapulocoracoid, parts of both humeri, a right femur, and a variety of armor (including tall spines). Frederic Augustus Lucas described it briefly in 1901 as a new species of Stegosaurus, but soon gave the material its own genus. Charles W. Gilmore fully described the material in 1914. William T. Blows and Javier Pereda-Suberbiola both considered the genus to be the same as Polacanthus, creating the new combination Polacanthus marshii, but this has since been rejected. Ken Carpenter and James Kirkland noted that many of the resemblances between the two were more widely distributed among ankylosaurs than previously thought, or were based on damage to the bones, such as some femoral characters. However, its similarity to Polacanthus has been noted since Lucas renamed it in 1902, the two being most similar in armor, although Hoplitosaurus lacks the sacral shield of armor found in Polacanthus. Today, both are considered to be polacanthine or polacanthid ankylosaurs, depending on classification preference (see for example [1]), or ankylosaurians of uncertain relationships.

Paleobiology Gilmore described the animal as being about 1.2 m (4 ft) tall at the hips. It would have been a quadrupedal herbivore, eating low to the ground; armor was its main defense. Blows (2001) reconsidered the armor in light of new data on polacanthine dinosaurs, and found it to fall into the following categories:

Pectoral spines Presacral spines Splates (spine+plate) from the sacral region Tall, asymmetric, hollow-based caudal plates Small to large solid-based, ridged ossicles (filling spaces)

See also Timeline of ankylosaur research

References

External links Polacanthidae at Tree of Life

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Hoplitosaurus

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Hoplitosaurus claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Hoplitosaurus before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Hoplitosaurus ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Hoplitosaurus

In research: Hoplitosaurus appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Hoplitosaurus in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Hoplitosaurus is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Barremian dinosaurs, Dinosaur genera, Dinosaurs of the United States, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Hoplitosaurus outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Hoplitosaurus in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Hoplitosaurus means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Hoplitosaurus out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Hoplitosaurus in simple terms?

Why does Hoplitosaurus matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Hoplitosaurus?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Hoplitosaurus.