“Punk rocker” dinosaur was lined in lengthy spikes and armor, newly found fossils present

A dinosaur dubbed one of many “strangest” ever discovered boasted an elaborate armory of lengthy bony spikes and a tail weapon, in accordance with findings published within the science journal Nature.

Spicomellus, which roamed the Earth 165 million years in the past, is the world’s oldest ankylosaur, a herbivorous group of dinosaurs identified for his or her tank-like our bodies.

Palaeontologists’ picture of Spicomellus was primarily based on a single rib bone present in Morocco in 2019.

But newly found stays have helped scientists type a clearer image of the bizarre dinosaur.

The fossils confirmed it had bony spikes fused onto all of its ribs — one thing by no means seen earlier than in another vertebrate species residing or extinct, in accordance with the analysis printed Wednesday.

Richard Butler, a professor on the University of Birmingham and the mission co-lead, told CBS News partner BBC News that it was the “punk rocker” of its time.

Butler known as the fossils an “incredibly significant discovery,” including that “Spicomellus is one of the strangest dinosaurs that we’ve ever discovered.”

Butler’s mission co-leader, Susannah Maidment of the Natural History Museum in London, added that it was shocking that the spikes had been fused straight onto the bone, the BBC reported.

“We don’t see that in any other animal, living or extinct,” she mentioned. “It’s absolutely covered in really weird spikes and protrusions all over the back of the animal, including a bony collar that wraps around its neck and some sort of weapon on the end of its tail, so a most unusual dinosaur.”

The discovery is so uncommon that Butler and Maidment are contemplating whether or not the theories on how ankylosaurs developed needs to be re-assessed.

These dinosaurs survived late into the time dinosaurs had been on Earth, in a interval generally known as the Cretaceous, the BBC reported. The finish of this era noticed the emergence of giant carnivorous predators, akin to T. Rex, so it had been thought that ankylosaurs began off with easy, small armored plates on their again, which then grew to become bigger and extra intensive to guard themselves from these massive beasts, in accordance with Butler.

“If you had asked me what I would have expected the oldest known ankylosaur to look like I would have said something with quite simple armor,” Butler instructed BBC News. “Instead, we have an animal bristling with spikes like a hedgehog, the most bizarre armor that we’ve ever found in any animal, far outside the range of armor seen in later ankylosaurs.”