ArticleNature ecology & evolution2021
Bizarre dermal armour suggests the first African ankylosaur.
Article in Nature ecology & evolution, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed.
- Extreme armour in the world's oldest ankylosaur.Nature · 2025Article
- New perspectives on body size and shape evolution in dinosaurs.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2025Review
- Article
- New frontiers in dinosaur exploration.Biology letters · 2025Review
- The world's oldest cerapodan ornithischian dinosaur from the Middle Jurassic of Morocco.Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- Divergent strategies in cranial biomechanics and feeding ecology of the ankylosaurian dinosaurs.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- New Middle to ?Late Jurassic dinosaur tracksites in the Central High Atlas Mountains, Morocco.Royal Society open science · 2023Article
- A new Cretaceous thyreophoran from Patagonia supports a South American lineage of armoured dinosaurs.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Article
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9 authors.
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Abstract
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.
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