The Jurassic Iron Maiden 

A new study found that even dinosaurs had their own version of a punk rock star sporting leather and spikey hair. 

Paleontologists recently discovered the new fossil remains of an unusual ankylosaur with spikes all over its body. 

Discovered near Morocco’s Atlas Mountains, the Spicomellus afer lived some 165 million years ago and was a member of the Ankylosaurs, a plant-eating, tank-like group related to stegosaurs. 

Measuring around 13 feet long and weighing roughly two tons, the dino stood out from its contemporaries: It had plates and spikes all over its body, including spikes sprouting from its ribs – a feature not seen before in other vertebrates. 

The S. afer also possessed a bony collar around its neck with spikes that could measure as much as three feet long – similar to a punk rock necklace. 

“Seeing and studying the Spicomellus fossils for the first time was spine-tingling,” co-lead author Richard Butler explained in a statement. “We just couldn’t believe how weird it was and how unlike any other dinosaur, or indeed any other animal we know of, alive or extinct. 

Butler and his colleagues remain puzzled about the purpose of the intricate armor, but suggested it could have been used to fend off predators and even attract mates. 

“Spicomellus’ armor is totally impractical, and would have been a bit annoying in dense vegetation, for example,” lead author Susannah Maidment told CNN. “So we think that it is possible the animal evolved such elaborate armor for some sort of display, perhaps to do with mating.” 

Later, ankylosaurs shed such flamboyant features, evolving simpler armor geared more toward survival as giant predators emerged in the Cretaceous. 

The research team noted that the fossil makes the S. afer the oldest known ankylosaur and the first to be discovered on the African continent. It also overturns assumptions about ankylosaur evolution, showing key adaptations existed far earlier than thought. 

For example, analysis of the remains found evidence that the giant lizard wielded a tail club, one of the ankylosaurs’ trademark weapons. This finding pushes the origin of such weapons back more than 30 million years earlier than previously thought. 

“It turns much of what we thought we knew about ankylosaurs and their evolution on its head,” said Butler. “And (it) demonstrates just how much there still is to learn about dinosaurs.”