Yet another picture pulled from the archives, but rather a nice one. Despite being really quite speciose (I was looking at a recent species list the other day and there were about as twice as many as I remembered there being), I’ve managed to give the ankylosaurs far too little coverage on here, in part because I see so few of them in museums. Europe is not blessed with ankylosaurs mounts and so this one comes from Tokyo. It’s a great mount showing off both the skeleton and major parts of the armour that make this group so distinctive and it’s nice to see it mounted alongside a stegosaur for comparison.
Nitpick: you missed an “o” in the name.
Gah. I checked and then spelled it wrong. Thanks, I’ll fix it.
Oh yes it is! This one is spectacular. This one would be perfect if I were to try to draw a reconstruction from the mount. I’ve got a sense of its volume and stance, the mass and proportions of the living animal. Gorgeous photo of a wonderful mount.
Ankylosaurs are fascinating. The walking tanks are so cool with their varied armor and dramatic defensive maces. Definitely among the tough guys, they rate right up with theropods for pure excitement.
Sometimes I think the allosaurs and tyrannosaurs gain even more stature by the sheer toughness of their prey. Stegosaur spikes, ankylosaur maces, ceratopsian horns and frills, when I think of the big theropods they wouldn’t be nearly as terrifying and thrilling without contemplating the great animals they hunted. Sauropods of course have that vast size for their defense. Sit on the theropod, or kick it in the shins, or just stand up so that neck is out of reach or swing the whip tail.
In Robert Bakker’s “Raptor Red” one of the more interesting fight scenes involved a Gastonia – similar armored dinosaur – fighting with other males at a lek for the chance to breed. Is there evidence in the bones that any of these ankylosaurs had that male-male belligerence and damage from each others’ tails or spikes?
Actually, I’d like your view on that book anyway. How dated is it and how much of it stands up to current information?
I’ve never read RR so can’t comment on it.
As for ankylosaur intraspecific fighting, I’m not aware of any evidence at all that they did. You would expect to see some hefty fractures in places and I don’t know of any.
Coombs doubted the clubs were used for intraspecific fighting, and while Arbour and others noted some pathologies in ankylosaur bone, the cause, in most cases, isn’t clear. Btw one of the unfortunate effects of the Hayashibara demise is the likely delay in getting their nodosaur specimen published. No doubt it will eventually, but the delay is too bad….that thing may really shed some light on these issues…
I didn’t read that book but IIRC Bakker took liberties with chronology or stratigraphy at one point–something about a confrontation between Acrocanthosaurus and Utahraptor(?) The latter is probably a bit older, and lived in an ornithiscian dominated habitat, whereas A. atokensis co occurs with big sauropods.
Because we all know the fossil record is so complete that dinosaurs known from different times and places could never meet.
I’m new to your blog (I googled you after I heard your interview on Science…sort of) and am thrilled to find such a great dinosaur site. I look forward to learning more about these amazing animals. Ankylosaurs have always been a favorite of mine.
Well if you look back through the archives there’s nearly 5 years worth of stuff – about 1200 posts so far, so start reading.