| Acrotholus Temporal range: Late Cretaceous,
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| Holotype dome on display at the Royal Ontario Museum | |
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Clade: | Dinosauria |
| Clade: | †Ornithischia |
| Clade: | †Neornithischia |
| Clade: | †Pachycephalosauria |
| Family: | †Pachycephalosauridae |
| Genus: | †Acrotholus Evans et al., 2013 |
| Type species | |
| †Acrotholus audeti Evans et al., 2013
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Acrotholus (Greek for "highest dome"- akros meaning highest and tholos meaning dome) is an extinct genus of pachycephalosaur dinosaur that lived during the Santonian of the late Cretaceous, in the Milk River Formation of Canada. The type species, A. audeti, was named after Roy Audet allowing access to his ranch leading to the discovery of the species. The discovery of this specimen lead to several new revelations in the fossil records questioning the preservation of small-bodied organisms along with the evolution of early pachycephalosaurs. The iconic cranial dome found on Acrotholus makes it one of the earliest indisputable known members of the pachycephalosaur family.[1]
Like others of its clade, Acrotholus was a bipedal herbivore characterized by a dome-shaped head. The dome had often been associated with intra-species combat though exact method of contact have been debated.[2]
- ^ Evans, David C.; Schott, Ryan K.; Larson, Derek W.; Brown, Caleb M.; Ryan, Michael J. (2013-05-07). "The oldest North American pachycephalosaurid and the hidden diversity of small-bodied ornithischian dinosaurs". Nature Communications. 4: 1828. Bibcode:2013NatCo...4.1828E. doi:10.1038/ncomms2749. ISSN 2041-1723. PMID 23652016.
- ^ Peterson, Joseph E.; Dischler, Collin; Longrich, Nicholas R. (2013-07-16). "Distributions of Cranial Pathologies Provide Evidence for Head-Butting in Dome-Headed Dinosaurs (Pachycephalosauridae)". PLOS ONE. 8 (7): e68620. Bibcode:2013PLoSO...868620P. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0068620. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 3712952. PMID 23874691.