A Incredible discovery in Morocco shows that the dinosaur Spicomellus afer it was more bizarre of what was thought so far. The fossil, found by a research group led byUniversity of Birmingham (United Kingdom) found, in fact, among other things, that this big prehistoric animal possessed one real anti -approach weapon (and not only).
The fossil shows in particular a “Collar” bone surrounded by a mitter long spikes who protruded from both sides of the neck, a weapon, among other things, owned over 30 million years earlier of any other ankylosaur.
The Spicomellus it is in fact The oldest ankylosaur in the worldhaving lived more than 165 million years ago in Medium jurassicclose to what today is the Moroccan city of Boulemanand it was the first ankylosaur to be found on the African continent.
The initial description of the species had been Published on Nature Ecology & Evolution in 2021 And it was based on a single rib. But with this discovery, which comes shortly after the discovery of the mysterious dinosaur Enigmacursor, Now paleontologists know that the animal had Aculei bone melted and protruding from all its ribsa feature not found in any other kind of living or extinct vertebrates, with 87 centimeters long thorns, which the authors believe were even longer in life and which emerged from a bone collar around the neck.
Finding such an elaborate armor in an ancient ankylosaur changes our understanding of how these dinosaurs have evolved – explains Susannah Maidment, which guided the study – demonstrates how important the African dinosaurs are and how important it is to improve our knowledge about them. It is particularly unusual because it is the oldest anchorosaurus known, so we could expect a subsequent species to have inherited similar characteristics, but it is not so
The authors hypothesize that this series of points was used for attract partners and to show off with rivals. It is interesting to note that a similar exhibition armor has not yet been found in any other ankylosaur, while instead, as reported by the authors, the subsequent species possessed an armor whose function, however, was probably more defensive.
Scientists believe that the evolution of the larger predatory dinosaurs in the Cretaceous, as well as of larger carnivorous mammals, crocodiles and snakes, may have led the armor of the ankylosaurs to become more defensive, due to the growing risk of predation.
A characteristic of the first ankylosaurs that could have survived is instead their codal weapon. Although in fact the end of the tail of the Spicomellus It has not been found, the surviving bones suggest owning a similar structure.
The discovery strengthens the importance of fossil documentation in resolve evolutionary enigmas and in deepening our understanding of the geographical distribution of dinosaurs, as well as to light the imagination of the public on dinosaurs.
This study is helping to progress Moroccan science – comments Driss Ouarhache, co -author of the research – we have never seen dinosaurs like these before, and this region still has much to offer
The remains of Spicomellus afer which constitute the basis of this study were cleaned and prepared at the Dhar el mahraz by Fez, in Moroccousing scientific equipment provided by Research England International Strategy and Partnership Fund ofUniversity of Birminghamand fossils are now cataloged and preserved on this site.
The work was published on Nature.
Sources: University of Birmingham / Nature
