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First African Ankylosaur and Oldest from Morocco


Troodon

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I attended the 2019 Tucson show and a Moroccan dealer had a strange partial spike for sale.  Purchased it and thought it might be ankylosaurian.  Well a paper was just published that identifies it as the oldest Ankylosaur known, Spicomellus afer.  From the El Mers III formation where the oldest Stegosaurus was found.  It differs from all other known armoured dinosaurs that these spikes are fused on the dorsal ribs, pretty cool critter.

 

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Paper (paywalled but it opened up for me)

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-021-01553-6

 

Articles

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/press-office/bizarre-armoured-spikes-belong-to-oldest-ankylosaur-ever-discove.ht

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-58657862

 

https://news.sky.com/story/life-finds-a-way-unusual-fossil-found-in-morocco-is-new-species-of-dinosaur-12415509

 

Photo from @Dinocollector who asked about this one last year

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Two ankylosaurs have been described from the Middle Jurassic of Laurasia, Sarcolestes from Oxfordshire, southern England, and Tianchiasaurus from Xinjiang, China. The lead author of the paper describing Spicomellus also described to science the oldest African stegosaur Adratiklit, also from Morocco. It's no wonder that the fossil record of thyreophorans from the Jurassic of Gondwana is poor, and it's possible that stegosaurs did not survive past the Albian stage of the Cretaceous because their armor pattern was insufficient to protect them from giant theropods, unlike the heavy armor plating of ankylosaurs.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello! 
Thank you so much @Troodon I was busy and I see the post today.

I have 2 spikes from Morocco, one could be ankylosaur and other stegosaur 

 

1C30AE1F-3927-4EF6-8571-3E8CB5F005BA.jpeg

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26 minutes ago, Dinocollector said:

Hello! 
Thank you so much @Troodon I was busy and I see the post today.

I have 2 spikes from Morocco, one could be ankylosaur and other stegosaur 

 

1C30AE1F-3927-4EF6-8571-3E8CB5F005BA.jpeg

  Very nice.  Yes the longer one does look like a Stego, very cool :dinothumb:

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