Kranosaura, knocking heads long before pachycephalosaurs

[Halichoeres]

When it comes to tetrapods, the Triassic is my favorite period, because there were so many side branches and dead-end experiments from the major lineages, and not until after a couple of extinction events was it clear who would dominate the rest of the Mesozoic. This paper describes some of the cranial anatomy of the Triassic archosauromorph Triopticus primus (Stocker et al. 2016), as well as the new Kranosaura kuttyi, which is likely a close relative. The holotype is a thickened skull roof, sort of like a pachycephalosaur, but swollen both upward and forward. The animal with this thick noggin was probably quadrupedal, but we don't know anything for sure about its postcranial anatomy.

A piece of the skull:


Paper (paywall): https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joa.13414

[Newt]

Yes! More wacky archosauromorphs! I love it.

[andrewsaurus rex]

found this picture.....looks like Moschops with a domed skull

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQUHK3ZCX20FzD24nzq7rfhfvcoO-twDglAZphy1ChuL4NU0x9zAB1gTzLl18RMFQ0LLvY&usqp=CAU

[Halichoeres]

Yeah, that seems like a plausible hypothesis for what the rest of it looked like. I hope someone finds some limbs and vertebrae from one of these soon!

[andrewsaurus rex]

the only thing is that Moschops doesn't look like it could be much of a runner and one would think that head butting behaviour would require a less lumbering body.  But maybe they were more agile than their body suggests.

The head shape wouldn't allow for pushing contests like bison, so full out charges like Musk Ox (boom) and short range lunges like Bighorn would be the other options, with the Bighorn lunge being the most likely in my view.  Of course maybe the domed heads were just for display (crikey,  it's Pachycephalosaurus all over again).