Talk:Stygimoloch

Watch the weasel words and speculation, please

Let's remember to watch the weasel words and speculation in this and other articles. Imputing behavior, or functions for anatomy, on the basis of "it seems obvious" is questionable science. :-) -- Writtenonsand 22:53, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Misleading Article

Could someone P*L*E*A*S*E take the time to read the comments and referred articles on the Dracorex-Stigymoloch-Pachycephalosaurus situation featured here: http://paleoking.blogspot.com/2010/01/farewell-to-2009-yeares-best-and-worst.html

The article's tone seems to take Horner's proposal of Stygimoloch being a juvenile of another pachy species for granted way too much; the matter is still very much open to debate, and that is not reflected here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.230.91.121 (talk) 13:31, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I think the fact hat this article doesn't redirect to Pachy is open enough... also blogs don't count as sources and nobody has published a rebuttal. Dinoguy2 (talk) 15:42, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Name

"Stygimoloch" doesn't mean "thorny devil from the River Styx" it means "devil from the River Styx" (not that Moloch is necessarily a devil; depends on the tradition). You need the "spinifer" to get "thorny." 72.240.64.25 (talk) 14:21, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Lumping.

Since nobody has countered these arguments on the Pachycephalosaurus talk page, I am bringing them up here, copied and pasted in their entirety. 85.211.136.200 (talk) 10:25, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Don’t you think you’re jumping the gun a bit by lumping ‘’Stygimoloch’’ under ‘’Pachycephalosaurus’’? I mean, they don’t even belong to the same strata. ‘’Stygimoloch’’ is more recent than ‘’Pachycephalosaurus’’ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.75.110.242 (talk) 05:22, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

• I completely agree with this for a different reason. Until it is definitively found that Dracorex and Stygimoloch are indeed just Pachycephalosaurus, then they should remain unlumped pages, simple as that. If they do get lumped, go ahead and lump them, if they don't then they'll just remain their seperate pages, but until then they are dubious and should remain as seperate pages imo. Theferretman21 (talk) 09:18, 9 February 2020 (UTC)theferretman21

Well, since no scientific papers have contested this synonymy, the issue does not seem to be contentious. Anyhow, here is the discussion that lead to the merger: FunkMonk (talk) 22:01, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

How definite is definite for you? As the previous discussion concluded, the weight of the current scientific consensus on this matter - an uncontroversial one - is that they are ontogenetic synonyms. We are not beholden to some hypothetical future paper that might argue for their separation. If and when such a paper is published, then we can reevaluate whether we should keep them merged. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 23:25, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. Track your hook after promotion. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by TarnishedPath (talk) 05:05, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that the horns and dome of the dinosaur Stygimoloch were thought to belong to different animals until the discovery of a more complete skull?

• Source: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02724634.1998.10011064

"Galton and Sues (1983) named Stygimoloch spinifer from an unusual partial left squamosal ornamented with well-developed horns and robust bony nodes . This specimen (UCMP 119433) was collected from the Hell Creek Formation, McCone County, Montana. [...[ In 1987, Giffin et al. described a tall, narrow. domed pachycephalosaurid skull (MPM 7111) from the Hell Creek Formation of eastern Montana. They

noted that it was significantly different from any previously known pachycephalosaurid, and named it a new species, Stenotholus kohleri, primarily on the basis of the markedly different shape of the cranium. Gabriel and Berghaus (1988) formally synonymized Stenotholus kohleri with Stygimoloch spinifer. Their comparison of MPM 7111 and MPM 8111 confirmed that both specimens shared the distinctive frontoparietal dome and cranial features characteristic of S. spinifer."

• • ALT1: ... that a specimen of the dome-headed dinosaur Stygimoloch has been dated to only 320,000 years before the extinction of the dinosaurs? Source: https://www.scup.com/doi/10.18261/let.57.4.7

"Based on the new thickness data and ages calculated here, all the specimens were preserved during the final 0.5 m.y. of the Cretaceous. UW 26526 was buried approximately 320 k.y. before the end of the Cretaceous while UW 26525 and UW 26611 were interred roughly 370 k.y. and 457 k.y. prior to the terminal Cretaceous boundary event respectively."

• • ALT2: ... that unlike other dome-headed dinosaurs, Stygimoloch possessed three to four long horns emerging from the back of its head? Source: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02724634.1998.10011064

"Stygimoloch spinifer, an Upper Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) pachycephalosaurid ornithischian from western North America, has a high-domed, transversely narrow skull, distinguished by a unique cluster of well developed horns and bony nodes preserved along the posterodorsal surface of a thickened squamosal shelf."

• • Reviewed: Template:Did_you_know_nominations/Erika_Yoshida
  • Comment: Second alt hook is the most surface level interesting fact about the animal, but I think the first one is more interesting and would be new to readers that are familiar with it from its popularity in children's dinosaur books and the Jurassic World movies. The first alt hook intends to draw interest from the main thing anyone knows about dinosaurs (their extinction). Will fulfil QPQ soon.

Converted from a redirect by LittleLazyLass (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 7 past nominations.

LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 03:10, 30 August 2026 (UTC).

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: - Not done
Overall: Needs a QPQ. ALT1 is a little too precise, as the source provides the date as "approximately 320 k. y." ALT0 and ALT2 look fine, though I wonder if there is a stronger hook in the discovery history, that the most complete skull was discovered by amateur archaeologists and later sold for $40,000? Qubed (talk) 07:37, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

Comment: With ALT2, it might make sense to include an image of the skull. Ashorocetus (talk | contribs) 01:38, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

ALT2 would be stronger with an image. Qubed (talk) 09:50, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

I've added the QPQ, sorry for the delay. ALT1 could be reworded slightly to "only around 320,000 years" to be source accurate. Perhaps unsurprisingly for a WP:DINO editor, I would not consider facts about a specimen being sold more interesting than the actual science of the animal and would prefer one of the current hooks. I'd say I like ALT0 a bit more than ALT2, but it may be less intuitive to those not familiar with palaeontology so ALT2 with an image is acceptable if there are concerns there. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 19:37, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

Approved ALT0. Qubed (talk) 23:36, 2 October 2026 (UTC)