Ankylosaurid dinosaur tail clubs evolved through stepwise acquisition of key features

Journal of Anatomy
Victoria M Arbour, Philip J Currie

Abstract

Ankylosaurid ankylosaurs were quadrupedal, herbivorous dinosaurs with abundant dermal ossifications. They are best known for their distinctive tail club composed of stiff, interlocking vertebrae (the handle) and large, bulbous osteoderms (the knob), which may have been used as a weapon. However, tail clubs appear relatively late in the evolution of ankylosaurids, and seemed to have been present only in a derived clade of ankylosaurids during the last 20 million years of the Mesozoic Era. New evidence from mid Cretaceous fossils from China suggests that the evolution of the tail club occurred at least 40 million years earlier, and in a stepwise manner, with early ankylosaurids evolving handle-like vertebrae before the distal osteoderms enlarged and coossified to form a knob.

References

Oct 23, 1997·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·R L CifelliB J Kowallis
Sep 8, 2001·Die Naturwissenschaften·X XuH L You
Aug 28, 2009·The Anatomical Record : Advances in Integrative Anatomy and Evolutionary Biology·Victoria M Arbour, Eric Snively
Jun 26, 2014·CPT: Pharmacometrics & Systems Pharmacology·T A Leil

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Citations

Mar 6, 2019·The Anatomical Record : Advances in Integrative Anatomy and Evolutionary Biology·Victoria M Arbour, Lindsay E Zanno
Jan 19, 2018·Proceedings. Biological Sciences·Victoria M Arbour, Lindsay E Zanno

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