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Hoplitosaurus (meaning "Hoplite lizard") was a genus of armored dinosaur related to Polacanthus. It was named from a partial skeleton found in the Barremian-age Lower Cretaceous Lakota Formation of Custer County, South Dakota. It is an obscure genus which has been subject to some misinterpretation of its damaged remains. Although there was a push to synonymize it with Polacanthus in the late 1980s-early 1990s, Hoplitosaurus has been accepted as a valid albeit poorly known genus in more recent reviews.
William T. BlowsBlows, W.T. (1987). The armoured dinosaur Polacanthus foxi from the Lower Cretaceous of the Isle of Wight. Palaeontology 30(3):557-580. and Javier Pereda-SuberbiolaPereda-Suberbiola, J. (1991). Nouvelle évidence d'une connexion terrestre entre Europe et Amérique du Nord au Crétacé inférior: Hoplitosaurus synonyme de Polacanthus (Ornithischia: Ankylosauria). C.R. Academie Science, Paris 313:971-976. FrenchPereda-Suberbiola, J. (1994). Polacanthus (Ornithischia, Ankylosauria), a transatlantic armoured dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous of Europe and North America. Palaeontographica Abteilung A 232(4-6):133-159. both considered the genus to be the same as Polacanthus, creating the new combination Polacanthus marshii, but this has since been rejected.Carpenter, K., and Kirkland, J.I. (1998). Review of Lower and middle Cretaceous ankylosaurs from North America. In: Lucas, S.G., Kirkland, J.I., and Estep, J.W. (eds.). Lower and Middle Cretaceous Terrestrial Ecosystems. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 14:249-270. Ken Carpenter and James Kirkland noted that many of the resemblances between the two were plesiomorphy among ankylosaurs than previously thought, or were based on damage to the bones, such as some femoral characters.
However, its similarity to Polacanthus has been noted since Lucas renamed it in 1902, the two being most similar in armor, although Hoplitosaurus lacks the sacrum shield of armor found in Polacanthus. Today, both are considered to be polacanthinae or polacanthid Ankylosauria,Carpenter, K. (2001). Phylogenetic analysis of the Ankylosauria. In: Carpenter, K. (ed.). The Armored Dinosaurs. Indiana University Press:Bloomington, 455-483. depending on classification preference (see for example ), or ankylosaurians of uncertain relationships.Vickaryous, M.K., Maryańska, T., and Weishampel, D.B. (2004). Ankylosauria. In: Weishampel, D.B., Dodson, P., and Osmólska, H. (eds.). The Dinosauria (second edition). University of California Press:Berkeley, 363-392.
Blows (2001) reconsidered the armor in light of new data on polacanthine dinosaurs, and found it to fall into the following categories:Blows, W.T. (2001). Dermal armor of the polacanthine dinosaurs. In: Carpenter, K. (ed.). The Armored Dinosaurs. Indiana University Press:Bloomington, 363-385.
Paleobiology
Gilmore described the animal as being about 1.2 m (4 ft) tall at the hips. It would have been a herbivore, eating low to the ground; armor was its main defense.
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