Scientists discover a type of dinosaur “punk rocker”, with thorns of up to 1 meter; Look like it was

Anquilossauro lived 165 million years ago; The researchers estimate that the animal would weigh about 2 tons

The scientists discovered in Morocco the fossil of a dinosaur with an extravagant carapace of thorns that reached up to a meter in length. The species, called Spicomellus aferHe lived 165 million years ago and is the oldest copy of the Anquilosars, a group of Carapace dinosaurs.

The discovery was welcomed by surprise by scientists, who will have to review the theories on the evolution of the ankylosaurs. Richard Butler, of the University of Birmingham, in the United Kingdom, one of the authors of the research, BBC that the animal was a “punk rock” of his time. “It’s one of the strangest dinosaurs ever discovered,” he said.

According to the co -author of the work, Susannah Maidment, from the Museum of Natural History, the animal’s thorns were arrested directly to their bones. “We don’t see him in any other animal, alive or extinct,” he told the BBC. “His back is totally covered by bizarre thorns and other protrusions, as well as a kind of bone necklace around the neck and another type at the end of the tail; a very unusual dinosaur.”

The discovery is so unusual that the two experts evaluate that a revaluation of theories on the evolution of ankillosaure should force. The animals lived during the Cretaceous, from 145 to 66 million years ago. The end of this period marks the emergence of great predators, such as Tyrannosaurus Rex. Therefore, it was believed, the ankillosaurs developed a carapace on the back that became greater to protect them from contemporary carnivores.

“If someone asked me how I imagined that it would be the oldest Ankilosauro, I would say that he had a much simpler carapace,” said the expert. “Instead, we find an animal covered with plug, like a curl, the most extravagant carapace ever found in any animal, very different from the carapaces of the younger ankylosures.”

The researchers estimate that the animal would be about four meters long of one meter and weighed about two tons. The discovery raises the possibility that the ankylosaurs emerged with more elaborate carapaces that were becoming simpler and perhaps more functional over time.

“What we are assuming is that these structures can exist as an ornament and only then, at the end of the Cretaceous, did they begin to be used as a protection against giant dinosaurs with powerful jaws,” said the scientist.

The discovery was made in the city of Boulevia, in Morocco, by a local farmer. It is the first Ankilosauro discovered in Africa. The work was published in Nature.

Source: Terra

Rose

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