Newly identified dinosaur wielded bladed tail resembling Aztec war club
- The unique trait helped the four-legged plant-eating Stegouros elengassen ward off predators about 74 million years ago
- While it is related to the Ankylosaurus and an earlier group of dinosaurs called stegosaurs, the creature does not have the same club or spike tail weapon
More than half a millennium ago, Aztec warriors brandished a weapon called a macuahuitl, a wooden club with jagged obsidian blades embedded on its sides, to inflict gruesome wounds on enemies in close combat.
A newly identified armoured dinosaur that inhabited the Patagonian region of Chile did much the same thing to ward off predators about 74 million years ago with a tail resembling a macuahuitl, scientists said on Wednesday.
The four-legged plant-eating creature, named Stegouros elengassen, exemplifies the arms race that unfolded during the age of dinosaurs to acquire new traits to survive in a perilous world.
It also sheds light on the evolution of a highly successful group of tank-like dinosaurs called ankylosaurs.
Stegouros lived in what is now South America’s southernmost tip during the Cretaceous Period in the twilight of the dinosaur era. It was small relative to other armored dinosaurs, at about seven feet (two metres) long.