Bizarre armoured spikes belong to oldest ankylosaur ever discovered

Ankylosaur bone. Credit: The Natural History Museum - An unusual fossil showing a series of spikes fused to a rib has been revealed to be the remains of the oldest ankylosaur ever found and the first from the African continent. The exciting discovery was made in the Middle Atlas Mountains of Morocco at the same site where researchers from the Natural History Museum (NHM) previously discovered the oldest stegosaur ever found. Dr Susannah Maidment, a researcher at the NHM and honorary senior lecturer at the University of Birmingham, described the new species and named it Spicomellus afer: Spicomellus meaning 'collar of spikes' and afer meaning 'of Africa'. "At first we thought the specimen could be part of a stegosaur, having previously found them at tthe same location. But on closer inspection, we realised the fossil was unlike anything we had ever seen." The specimen is so unusual that at first the researchers wondered if it could be a fake. CT scanning proved it to be the real deal, and a cross section from the base of the specimen showed a cross hatch pattern in the bone unique to ankylosaurs, revealing its identity.