Bizarre tail weaponry in a transitional ankylosaur from subantarctic Chile
Armoured dinosaurs are well known for their evolution of specialized tail weapons— paired tail spikes in stegosaurs and heavy tail clubs in advanced ankylosaurs1. Armoured dinosaurs from southern Gondwana are rare and enigmatic, but probably include the earliest branches of Ankylosauria2–4. Here we...
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ftdatacite:10.5281/zenodo.5706421 2023-05-15T14:01:36+02:00 Bizarre tail weaponry in a transitional ankylosaur from subantarctic Chile Soto-Acuña, Sergio 2021 https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5706421 https://zenodo.org/record/5706421 en eng Zenodo https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04147-1 https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5706422 Open Access Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode cc-by-4.0 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess CC-BY dataset Dataset 2021 ftdatacite https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5706421 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04147-1 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5706422 2022-02-08T13:43:19Z Armoured dinosaurs are well known for their evolution of specialized tail weapons— paired tail spikes in stegosaurs and heavy tail clubs in advanced ankylosaurs1. Armoured dinosaurs from southern Gondwana are rare and enigmatic, but probably include the earliest branches of Ankylosauria2–4. Here we describe a mostly complete, semi-articulated skeleton of a small (approximately 2 m) armoured dinosaur from the late Cretaceous period of Magallanes in southernmost Chile, a region that is biogeographically related to West Antarctica5. Stegouros elengassen gen. et sp. nov. evolved a large tail weapon unlike any dinosaur: a flat, frond-like structure formed by seven pairs of laterally projecting osteoderms encasing the distal half of the tail. Stegouros shows ankylosaurian cranial characters, but a largely ancestral postcranial skeleton, with some stegosaur-like characters. Phylogenetic analyses placed Stegouros in Ankylosauria; specifically, it is related to Kunbarrasaurus from Australia6 and Antarctopelta from Antarctica7, forming a clade of Gondwanan ankylosaurs that split earliest from all other ankylosaurs. The large osteoderms and specialized tail vertebrae in Antarctopelta suggest that it had a tail weapon similar to Stegouros. We propose a new clade, the Parankylosauria, to include the first ancestor of Stegouros— but not Ankylosaurus—and all descendants of that ancestor. Dataset Antarc* DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) Magallanes ENVELOPE(-62.933,-62.933,-64.883,-64.883) |
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Open Polar |
collection |
DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) |
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ftdatacite |
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English |
description |
Armoured dinosaurs are well known for their evolution of specialized tail weapons— paired tail spikes in stegosaurs and heavy tail clubs in advanced ankylosaurs1. Armoured dinosaurs from southern Gondwana are rare and enigmatic, but probably include the earliest branches of Ankylosauria2–4. Here we describe a mostly complete, semi-articulated skeleton of a small (approximately 2 m) armoured dinosaur from the late Cretaceous period of Magallanes in southernmost Chile, a region that is biogeographically related to West Antarctica5. Stegouros elengassen gen. et sp. nov. evolved a large tail weapon unlike any dinosaur: a flat, frond-like structure formed by seven pairs of laterally projecting osteoderms encasing the distal half of the tail. Stegouros shows ankylosaurian cranial characters, but a largely ancestral postcranial skeleton, with some stegosaur-like characters. Phylogenetic analyses placed Stegouros in Ankylosauria; specifically, it is related to Kunbarrasaurus from Australia6 and Antarctopelta from Antarctica7, forming a clade of Gondwanan ankylosaurs that split earliest from all other ankylosaurs. The large osteoderms and specialized tail vertebrae in Antarctopelta suggest that it had a tail weapon similar to Stegouros. We propose a new clade, the Parankylosauria, to include the first ancestor of Stegouros— but not Ankylosaurus—and all descendants of that ancestor. |
format |
Dataset |
author |
Soto-Acuña, Sergio |
spellingShingle |
Soto-Acuña, Sergio Bizarre tail weaponry in a transitional ankylosaur from subantarctic Chile |
author_facet |
Soto-Acuña, Sergio |
author_sort |
Soto-Acuña, Sergio |
title |
Bizarre tail weaponry in a transitional ankylosaur from subantarctic Chile |
title_short |
Bizarre tail weaponry in a transitional ankylosaur from subantarctic Chile |
title_full |
Bizarre tail weaponry in a transitional ankylosaur from subantarctic Chile |
title_fullStr |
Bizarre tail weaponry in a transitional ankylosaur from subantarctic Chile |
title_full_unstemmed |
Bizarre tail weaponry in a transitional ankylosaur from subantarctic Chile |
title_sort |
bizarre tail weaponry in a transitional ankylosaur from subantarctic chile |
publisher |
Zenodo |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5706421 https://zenodo.org/record/5706421 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-62.933,-62.933,-64.883,-64.883) |
geographic |
Magallanes |
geographic_facet |
Magallanes |
genre |
Antarc* |
genre_facet |
Antarc* |
op_relation |
https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04147-1 https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5706422 |
op_rights |
Open Access Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode cc-by-4.0 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5706421 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04147-1 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5706422 |
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1766271533820411904 |