Dinosaurs · Armoured dinosaur

Shamosaurus

Say it shah-maw-sore-us. The name means ‘desert lizard’.

No length given in the museum's record.

The museum gives no length for this dinosaur, so we cannot draw it to scale.Body shape drawn for this site, showing the general build of armoured dinosaurs

Diet: Plant-eater
When: Early Cretaceous121 to 99 million years ago
Fossils found in: Mongolia
Named by: Tumanova (1983)
Family tree: Dinosauria › Ornithischia › Thyreophora › Ankylosauria › Ankylosauridae

Where Shamosaurus sits in the age of dinosaurs.Periods from the ICS chart; dinosaur dates from the Natural History Museum

Armoured dinosaurs. Plated and armoured plant-eaters, such as Stegosaurus and the ankylosaurs. See all 33

Lived at the same time

Harpymimus · same country
Psittacosaurus · same country
Achillobator · same country
Erlikosaurus · same country
Garudimimus · same country
Graciliceratops · same country
Talarurus · same country
Tsagantegia · same country

Other armoured dinosaurs

Gobisaurus Early Cretaceous
Minmi Early Cretaceous
Sauropelta Early Cretaceous
Silvisaurus Early Cretaceous
Polacanthus Early Cretaceous
Nodosaurus Early Cretaceous
Cedarpelta Early Cretaceous
Gastonia Early Cretaceous

Source: Shamosaurus in the Natural History Museum Dino Directory, read 12 November 2026. Sizes are the museum's estimates for a typical adult. "Lived at the same time" lists dinosaurs whose dates overlap, which does not always mean they met.