Aletopelta

Aletopelta (; meaning 'wanderer shield') is a monospecific genus of basal ankylosaurid dinosaur from Southern California that lived during the Late Cretaceous (upper Campanian stage, 75.5 Ma) in what is now the Point Loma Formation. The type and only species, Aletopelta coombsi, is known from a partial skeleton preserving osteoderms. It was originally described in 1996 by W. P. Coombs, Jr. and T.A. Deméré before being named in 2001 by Tracy Ford and James Kirkland. Aletopelta has an estimated size of 5 metres (16 feet) and weight of 2 tonnes (4,409 lbs). The holotype formed a miniature reef and was scavenged upon by invertebrates and sharks.

==Discovery and naming== thumb|left|Point Loma Formation in Southern California In 1987, construction work was done on the College Boulevard near Carlsbad at the Californian coast. While paleontologically surveying the work, Bradford Riney noted that a skeleton had been uncovered by a ditch dug for a sewage pipe. Within days, the specimen was secured by the San Diego Natural History Museum. It was dubbed the "Carlsbad Ankylosaur". The skeleton was later described, but not named, in 1996 by Thomas Deméré and Walter Preston Coombs before being named in 2001 by Tracy Lee Ford and James Kirkland. The skeleton originated from a layer of the marine Point Loma Formation which dates to the upper Campanian stage, 75.5 Ma. The formation has yielded specimens pertaining to calcareous nannoplankton, foraminifers, scaphopods, pelecypods, gastropods, cephalopods, ostracods, decapods, echinoids, elasmobranchs, and actinopterygians, with the addition of a femur, right dentary containing teeth and cervical vertebrae of a hadrosaur. The type and only known specimen of Aletopelta was once a bloated carcass that had been washed out to sea, likely by a stream, which sank to the bottom with its underside facing upwards and became a miniature reef, as evidence by Pelecypoda such as Ostrea sp. and Spondylus sp. being attached to the bones and the presence of ammonites and gastropods found in association with the skeleton. The carcass was also scavenged upon by marine invertebrates and sharks such as Squalicorax and Scapanorhynchus, which resulted with most of the long bones being hollow and many shallow pits on the osteoderms and ribs. The holotype specimen, SDNHM 33909, consists of teeth, fragmentary scapulae, partial humerus, partial ulna, possible fragment of right radius, ulna, partial left and possibly right ischium, femora, tibiae, fibulae, four or five partial vertebrae, dorsal neural arch, neural arches of the sacrum, fragmentary ribs, osteoderms including pelvic shield and cervical half ring. The type specimen may represent an immature individual based on the unfused astragalus, partly fused scutes and unfused neural spines.