Mongolostegus

Mongolostegus
Temporal range:
Early Cretaceous,
Skeletal reconstruction as an early-diverging stegosaur
Scientific classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Dinosauria
Clade: Ornithischia
Clade: Thyreophora
Clade: Stegosauria
Genus: Mongolostegus
Tumanova and Alifanov, 2018
Type species
Mongolostegus exspectabilis
Tumanova and Alifanov, 2018
Synonyms

Mongolostegus (meaning "Mongolian roof") is an extinct genus of stegosaurian dinosaurs from the Early Cretaceous (AptianAlbian ages) Dzunbain Formation of Mongolia. The genus contains a single species, Mongolostegus exspectabilis, known from a fragmentary single specimen representing the first stegosaur named from Mongolia. It is one of the youngest known stegosaurs, along with Yanbeilong and an unnamed species from the Hekou Group of China. In contrast to these taxa, which are members of the late-diverging stegosaur subfamily Stegosaurinae, Mongolostegus may have affinities to more basal taxa such as the Huayangosauridae.