What Happened to the Weaponized Tail?
Victoria Arbour, a paleontologist at the University of Toronto and the ROM along with Lindsay Zanno, a paleontologist from North Carolina State University, decided to figure out why. The researchers compiled data about nearly 300 mammals, reptiles, birds and dinosaurs, both extinct and living, looking for commonalities.
“Weapons like tail clubs and bony spikes are found only in a few extinct animals – such as ankylosaurs, glyptodonts (large extinct armadillos) and in some ancient turtle species,” says Victoria Arbour, former postdoctoral student at NC State, current postdoctoral fellow at the Royal Ontario Museum and corresponding author of a paper describing the research. “These same weapons just don’t occur in modern-day animals, and we wanted to know why they were so rare even in the fossil record.”
Mounted skeleton of Paraphysornis brasiliensis next to one of a glyptodont. Picture taken at the Minnosota Science Museum: Dinosaurs and Fossils Gallery.
Credit: Ryan Somma / Wikimedia Commons
To answer this question, Arbour and Zanno looked at a data set of 286 amniote species, both living and extinct, to see if there were patterns that pointed to the evolution of three specific types of tail weapons: bony spikes, a stiff tail or a bony knob at the tip of the tail. Amniotes refer to backboned, four-legged reptiles and mammals, as well as birds.
In the case of bony tail weaponry, the researchers found the animals had four things in common. First, they were usually large, weighing over 200 pounds (or 100 kilograms) – about the weight of the glyptodonts that used to roam South America or a living mountain goat – or were over three feet (a meter) long.
Stegosaurus tail detail, in the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences.
“It’s rare for large herbivores to have lots of bony armor to begin with,” Arbour says, “and even rarer to see armored species with elaborate head or tail ornamentation because of the energy cost to the animal. The evolution of tail weaponry in Ankylosaurus and Stegosaurus required a ‘perfect storm’ of traits that aren’t seen in living animals, and this unique combination explains why tail weaponry is rare even in the fossil record.”
Ankylosaurus magniventris Only known tail club (AMNH 5214), American Museum of Natural History
Credit: Ryan Somma – Wikimedia Commons
The research appears in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The research was funded in part by the Jurassic Foundation.
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2017.2299
Authors: Victoria Arbour, University of Toronto and Royal Ontario Museum; Lindsay Zanno, North Carolina State University and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences
Published: Proceedings of the Royal Society B
Source: http://www.ineffableisland.com/2018/01/what-happened-to-weaponized-tail.html
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No complete dinosaur skeleton has ever been found. Its all guess work like the skull on that steg doesnt belong. In Australia we discovered recently giant wombat type dino’s the size of small cars. It would of eaten bears for breakfast.