Spikey 'Punk Rock' Dinosaur Discovered

Archaeologists have discovered an extraordinary armoured dinosaur which had metre-long spikes sticking out from its neck.

Artist's impression of the armoured ankylosaur

The species, called Spicomellus afer, lived 165 million years ago, and is the oldest example of a group of armoured dinosaurs called ankylosaurs and is described by Prof Richard Butler, from the University of Birmingham who co-led the research, as "one of the strangest dinosaurs ever discovered." He told BBC News that it was the "punk rocker" of its time.

"It was a jaw dropping, spine-tingling moment, perhaps the most exciting in my career. It was clear right away that this animal was much weirder than we imagined and that we had enough of it to make sense of it," he said.

The elaborateness and spikiness of the animal found in Morocco has come as a shock to experts, who now have to rethink how these armoured dinosaurs evolved. Prof Butler's project co-leader, Prof Susannah Maidment of the Natural History Museum, added that it was surprising that the spikes were fused directly on to the bone. "We don't see that in any other animal, living or extinct," she said.

"It's absolutely covered in really weird spikes and protrusions all over the back of the animal, including a bony collar that wraps around its neck and some sort of weapon on the end of its tail, so a most unusual dinosaur," she said.

The researchers don't have enough of the skeleton to be sure of the animal's proportions, but they estimate it would have been about four metres long and one metre high, weighing around two tonnes.

The discovery is so unusual that the two professors are considering whether the discovery might force a rethink of theories on how ankylosaurs evolved.