Scientists have discovered that the world’s oldest armored dinosaur sported the most extreme defensive features ever found in any vertebrate, living or extinct. The 165-million-year-old Spicomellus afer from Morocco challenges everything researchers thought they knew about how prehistoric tank-like creatures evolved their protective gear.
The remarkable new findings, published in the prestigious journal Nature, reveal that this ancient beast bristled with meter-long spikes jutting from its neck like a prehistoric punk rocker. Professor Susannah Maidment from London’s Natural History Museum described the discovery as “jaw-droppingly weird” when her team first uncovered the extraordinary fossils in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains.
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