In 2000, Robert Gabbard, member of a team headed by Philip John Currie, found an ankylosaur skull in the Gobi Desert near Hermiin Tsav at the Baruungoyot. In 2014, Victoria Megan Arbour named and described the find as the species Zaraapelta nomadis, but at first it remained an invalid nomen ex dissertatione.[2] Later that year, however, it was validly named as the type species Zaraapelta nomadis by Arbour, Currie and, posthumously, the female Mongolian paleontologist Demchig Badamgarav. The generic name is derived from Mongolian zaraa, "hedgehog", in reference to the prickly appearance of ankylosaurs, and the Greek πέλτη, peltè, "small shield", a common component of ankylosaurian names in view of their body armour. The specific name nomadis is the genitive of the Latin nomas, "nomad" and r