Acantholipan is a type of dinosaur that lived a long time ago during the Late Cretaceous period, around 83.6 million years ago. This dinosaur was a herbivore, which means it ate plants. It was found in Mexico and belongs to a group of dinosaurs known as nodosaurids, which are part of the larger ankylosaurs family.
The name Acantholipan comes from Greek and Spanish words. “Akanthos” means “spine” in Greek, while “lipán” refers to a group of Indigenous people in the area of the fossil’s discovery. The species name, Acantholipan gonzalezi, is named after a Mexican paleontologist, Arturo Homero González-González.
The first fossils of Acantholipan were discovered in a place called Los Primos near San Miguel in Coahuila. The fossils were not complete; they were just pieces of bones. Scientists initially thought these fragments were too unclear to name a new species. However, they later realized that the bones had unique features that justified giving it its own name.
The main fossil, called the holotype, included several bones like pieces of the spine, ribs, and parts of the legs, but it did not have a skull. This fossil is now housed in the Colección Paleontológica de Coahuila at the Museo del Desierto in Saltillo.
In terms of classification, Acantholipan belongs to a group called Nodosaurinae, making it closely related to another similar dinosaur known as Nodosaurus. This classification helps paleontologists understand where it fits in the dinosaur family tree.
Acantholipan is special because it is the first ankylosaur species to be named from Mexico, which adds to our knowledge of dinosaurs that lived in this part of the world.