Parankylosauria

Parankylosauria is a group of armored dinosaurs that inhabited the Southern Hemisphere during the Cretaceous period. First proposed as a distinct clade in 2021, they are thought to be an early diverging branch of the ankylosaur lineage. While most ankylosaurs are found in the Northern Hemisphere, ankylosaur discoveries in the Southern hemipshere are rare and often fragmentary. They have been found in South America, Antarctica, and Australia, which were partially united into the supercontinent of Gondwana at the time. The 2018 discovery of a relatively complete skeleton later named as the genus Stegouros was a key development in understanding the evolutionary link between Gondwanan ankylosaurs.