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Bizarre dermal armour suggests the first African ankylosaur
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Journal Article
Bizarre dermal armour suggests the first African ankylosaur
2021
Overview
Ankylosauria is a diverse clade of armoured dinosaurs whose members were important constituents of many Cretaceous faunas. Phylogenetic analyses imply that the clade diverged from its sister taxon, Stegosauria, during the late Early Jurassic, but the fossil records of both clades are sparse until the Late Jurassic (~150 million years ago). Moreover, Ankylosauria is almost entirely restricted to former Laurasian continents, with only a single valid Gondwanan taxon.
Spicomellus afer
gen. et sp. nov. appears to represent the earliest-known ankylosaur and the first to be named from Africa, from the Middle Jurassic (Bathonian–Callovian) of Morocco, filling an important gap in dinosaur evolution. The specimen consists of a rib with spiked dermal armour fused to its dorsal surface, an unprecedented morphology among extinct and extant vertebrates. The specimen reveals an unrealized morphological diversity of armoured dinosaurs during their early evolution, and implies the presence of an important but undiscovered Gondwanan fossil record.
The authors report a fossilized vertebrate rib with spiked dermal armour fused to its dorsal surface from the mid-Jurassic of Morocco, which they interpret as the earliest known ankylosaur.
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group UK,Nature Publishing Group
Subject
