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A “weird”, heavily armoured dinosaur just became stranger than palaeontologists even realised, following the discovery of new fossils.
The Spicomellus, a 165-million-year-old type of armoured dinosaur famous for its tail weapon, was covered in shields and huge spikes, with some even fused to its skeleton, scientists have discovered.
“We’ve got this tail weapon, we’ve this shield over its pelvis, and we’ve all these crazy spikes,” Professor Susannah Maidment, a palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum, told Sky News.
“None of those features would we have predicted to see in the earliest Ankylosaur.”
She co-led the research, which is now published in the science journal Nature.
The new fossils, discovered in the Moroccan Atlas mountain town of Boulemane, revealed spikes of up to one metre long around the dinosaur’s head, along with plates protecting its throat.
On every rib, it had foot-long spikes fused to its skeleton, leading to questions over how its muscles were formed along its ribcage.
Its spiked ribs are a protective feature not seen in any other vertebrate, living or extinct, and the dinosaur’s distinctive armour may have been used to attract mates, as well as for defence.
Professor Richard Butler of the University of Birmingham. Pic: Natural History Museum
“Seeing and studying the Spicomellus fossils for the first time was spine-tingling,” said the project’s co-lead, Professor Richard Butler of the University of Birmingham.
“We just couldn’t believe how weird it was and how unlike any other dinosaur, or indeed any other animal we know of alive or extinct.
“It turns much of what we thought we knew about ankylosaurs and their evolution on its head and demonstrates just how much there still is to…
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