A dinosaur with side-blades discovered in England

A team of paleontologists from the United Kingdom has discovered a new species of dinosaur that had blade-like spikes on the side of its body, which may indicate that these animals migrated to the area where they were found.

Fossils of the species just described Vectipelda Barretti Originally discovered in 1993 in the Wessex Formation on the Isle of Wight off the south coast of England. It was fully excavated by a private collector the following year and sold to the Dinosaur Island Museum in 2021, which allowed it to be studied.

This genus is an ankylosaurus, herbivorous dinosaurs that walked on four short legs, had broad and flat bodies, small heads compared to their bodies, and a long tail with a club-like structure at the end. Additionally, most species in the group had a body armor consisting of a series of bony scales called osteoderms.

Until then, the skeleton was a mess PolacanthusThe second is one of two other species of ankylosaurs already discovered in the region Hylaeosaurus. But a closer look reveals that they’ve been wrong all along.

He [ V. barretti ] Very different indeed Polacanthus. It has distinct features on the spines of the neck and back, while also having recurved, knife-like edges that we don’t see in the material. Polacanthus We have.

Suzanne Maidment, a paleontologist who co-authored the discovery, answered Direct science

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A new type of dinosaur

Additionally, there are differences in how long they lived in the region, with the new species’ skeleton dating back 140 million years. Polacanthus The oldest is 134 million years old Hylaeosaurus The youngest at 143 million.

An evolutionary comparison among known ankylosaur species based on similarities and differences between their skeletons, and v. Barrett It is unrelated to the other two, being more closely related to the species found in China. This suggests that the migration of armored dinosaurs occurred from Asia to Europe and was unknown until recently, although more research is needed to confirm the hypothesis.

The dinosaur species is named after renowned paleontologist Paul Barrett of the Natural History Museum, who was not involved in the study.

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