Kentrosaurus is a genus of stegosaurid dinosaur from the Late Jurassic in Lindi Region of Tanzania. The type species is K. aethiopicus, named and described by German palaeontologist Edwin Hennig in 1915. Often thought to be a "primitive" member of the Stegosauria, several recent cladistic analyses find it as more derived than many other stegosaurs, and a close relative of Stegosaurus from the North American Morrison Formation within the Stegosauridae.
Kentrosaurus
Outdated skeletal mount (lectotype and paralectotypes), Museum für Naturkunde. This mount was erected in 1925 and was disassembled in 2006. In 2007 it was reassembled with a slightly altered posture
Endocasts of the sacral ganglion and brain at Museum of Paleontology of Tübingen.
Lateral view of a skeleton on display at the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin
Stegosauridae is a family of thyreophoran dinosaurs within the suborder Stegosauria. The clade is defined as all species of dinosaurs more closely related to Stegosaurus than Huayangosaurus. The name ‘Stegosauridae’ is thus a stem-based name taken from the well-represented genus – Stegosaurus. Fossil evidence of stegosaurids, dating from the Middle Jurassic through the Early Cretaceous, have been recovered from North America, Eurasia and Africa.
Stegosauridae
Illustration comparing three stegosaurids by Danny Cicchetti, 2013.
Hypothetical sexual dimorphism of Hesperosaurus mjosi, including variation in plate shape and coloration