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Tail Club
In zoology, a tail club is a bony mass at the end of the tail of some dinosaurs and of some mammals, most notably the Ankylosauridae, ankylosaurids and the glyptodonts, as well as meiolaniid turtles. It is thought that this was a form of defensive Armour (zoology), armour or weapon that was used to defend against predators, much in the same way as a thagomizer, possessed by stegosaurids, though at least in glyptodonts it is hypothesized it was used in Display (zoology), fighting for mating rights. Among dinosaurs, the club was present mainly in ankylosaurids, although Sauropoda, sauropods like ''Shunosaurus'' and ''Kotasaurus'' also possessed a tail club. Victoria Arbour has established that ankylosaurid tails could generate enough force to break bone during impacts. In a separate study, Arbour suggested tail clubs as well as large armoured herbivores as a whole evolve when animals are too large to hide and too small to avoid predation by size alone. Morphology In ankylosaurid di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ankylosaurus Dinosaur
''Ankylosaurus'' is a genus of Thyreophora, armored dinosaur. Its fossils have been found in geological formations dating to the very end of the Cretaceous Period (geology), Period, about 68–66 million years ago, in western North America, making it among the last of the non-avian dinosaurs. It was named by Barnum Brown in 1908; it is Monotypic taxon, monotypic, containing only ''A. magniventris''. The Binomial nomenclature, generic name means "fused" or "bent lizard", and the specific name means "great belly". A handful of specimens have been excavated to date, but a complete skeleton has not been discovered. Though other members of Ankylosauria are represented by more extensive fossil material, ''Ankylosaurus'' is often considered the archetype, archetypal member of its group, despite having some unusual features. Possibly the largest known Ankylosauridae, ankylosaurid, ''Ankylosaurus'' is estimated to have been between long and to have weighed between . It was Quadrupedal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Display (zoology)
Display behaviour is a set of ritualized behaviours that enable an animal to communicate to other animals (typically of the same species) about specific stimuli. Such ritualized behaviours can be visual, but many animals depend on a mixture of visual, audio, tactical and chemical signals. Evolution has tailored these stereotyped behaviours to allow animals to communicate both conspecifically and interspecifically which allows for a broader connection in different niches in an ecosystem. It is connected to sexual selection and survival of the species in various ways. Typically, display behaviour is used for courtship between two animals and to signal to the female that a viable male is ready to mate. In other instances, species may make territorial displays, in order to preserve a foraging or hunting territory for its family or group. A third form is exhibited by tournament species in which males will fight in order to gain the 'right' to breed. Animals from a broad range of evol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thagomizer
A thagomizer () is the distinctive arrangement of spike-shaped osteoderms on the tails of some stegosaurian dinosaurs. These spikes are believed to have been a defensive measure against predators. The arrangement of spikes originally had no distinct name. Cartoonist Gary Larson invented the name "thagomizer" in 1982 as a joke in his comic strip ''The Far Side'', and it was gradually adopted as an informal term sometimes used within scientific circles, research, and education. Etymology The term ''thagomizer'' was coined by Gary Larson in jest. In a 1982 ''The Far Side'' comic, a group of cavemen are taught by a caveman lecturer that the spikes on a stegosaur's tail were named "after the late Thag Simmons". The term was picked up initially by Kenneth Carpenter, then a paleontologist at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, who used the term when describing a fossil at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Annual Meeting in 1993. ''Thagomizer'' has since been adopted as an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prezygapophyses
The articular process or zygapophysis ( + apophysis) of a vertebra is a projection of the vertebra that serves the purpose of fitting with an adjacent vertebra. The actual region of contact is called the ''articular facet''.Moore, Keith L. et al. (2010) ''Clinically Oriented Anatomy'', 6th Ed, p.442 fig. 4.2 Articular processes spring from the junctions of the pedicles and laminæ, and there are two right and left, and two superior and inferior. These stick out of an end of a vertebra to lock with a zygapophysis on the next vertebra, to make the backbone more stable. * The superior processes or prezygapophysis project upward from a lower vertebra, and their articular surfaces are directed more or less backward (oblique coronal plane). * The inferior processes or postzygapophysis project downward from a higher vertebra, and their articular surfaces are directed more or less forward and outward. The articular surfaces are coated with hyaline cartilage. In the cervical vertebr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Osteoderms
Osteoderms are bony deposits forming scales, plates, or other structures based in the dermis. Osteoderms are found in many groups of Extant taxon, extant and extinct reptiles and amphibians, including lizards, crocodilians, frogs, Temnospondyli, temnospondyls (extinct amphibians), various groups of dinosaurs (most notably ankylosaurs and stegosaurians), phytosaurs, aetosaurs, placodonts, and hupehsuchians (marine reptiles with possible ichthyosaur affinities). Osteoderms are uncommon in mammals, although they have occurred in many xenarthrans (armadillos and the extinct glyptodonts and Mylodontidae, mylodontid ground sloths). The heavy, bony osteoderms have evolved independently in many different lineages. The armadillo osteoderm is believed to develop in subcutaneous dermal tissues. These varied structures should be thought of as anatomical analogues, not homology (biology), homologues, and do not necessarily indicate monophyly. The structures are however derived from scute, sc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victoria Arbour
Victoria Megan Arbour is a Canadian evolutionary biologist and vertebrate palaeontologist at Royal BC Museum, where she is Curator of Palaeontology. An "expert on the armoured dinosaurs known as ankylosaurs", Arbour analyzes fossils and creates 3-D computer models. She named the possible pterosaur '' Gwawinapterus'' from Hornby Island, and a partial ornithischian dinosaur from Sustut Basin, British Columbia (now named '' Ferrisaurus''), and has participated in the naming of the ankylosaurs '' Zuul'', '' Zaraapelta'', '' Crichtonpelta'', and '' Ziapelta''. Early life and education Born in 1983, Arbour is from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her mother, a math teacher, and father, a soil scientist, supported her science interests. Arbour completed a B.Sc. Honours Thesis supervised by Milton Graves, ''An ornithischian dinosaur from the Sustut Basin, British Columbia, Canada'', and graduated from Dalhousie University in 2006. She completed her master's thesis, ''Evolution, biomechanics, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kotasaurus
''Kotasaurus'' ( ; meaning " Kota Formation lizard") is a genus of sauropod dinosaur from the Early Jurassic period (Sinemurian– Pliensbachian). The only known species is ''Kotasaurus yamanpalliensis''. It was discovered in the Kota Formation of Telangana, India and shared its habitat with the related ''Barapasaurus''. So far the remains of at least 12 individuals are known. The greater part of the skeleton is known, but the skull is missing, with the exception of two teeth. Like some sauropods, it had a tail club that would have been used for intraspecific combat or interspecific defense. Discovery All known fossils come from an area of 2,400 m2 near the village of Yamanpalli in Telangana, approximately forty kilometres north of the ''Barapasaurus'' type locality. These finds, altogether 840 skeletal parts, were found in the late 1970s. In 1988 they were named and described by P.M. Yadagiri as a new genus and species of sauropod, ''Kotasaurus yamanpalliensis''. The generic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shunosaurus
''Shunosaurus'', meaning "Lizard from Sichuan", is a genus of sauropod dinosaur from Late Jurassic ( Oxfordian) beds in Sichuan Province in China, from 161 to 157 Million years ago. The name derives from "Shu", an ancient name for the Sichuan province. Discovery and species The first fossil of ''Shunosaurus'' was discovered in 1977 by a group of students, practising paleontological excavation at a road bank. The type species, ''Shunosaurus lii'', was described and named by Dong Zhiming, Zhou Shiwu and Zhang Yihong in 1983. The generic name derives from "Shu", an ancient name for Sichuan. The specific name honours hydrologist Li Bing, the governor of Sichuan in the third century BC. The holotype, IVPP V.9065, was collected from the Lower Xiashaximiao Formation near Dashanpu, Zigong. It consists of a partial skeleton. Later about twenty more major specimens were discovered, including several complete or near-complete skeletons, skulls and juveniles, making ''Shunosaurus'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sauropoda
Sauropoda (), whose members are known as sauropods (; from ''wikt:sauro-, sauro-'' + ''wikt:-pod, -pod'', 'lizard-footed'), is a clade of saurischian ('lizard-hipped') dinosaurs. Sauropods had very long necks, long tails, small heads (relative to the rest of their body), and four thick, pillar-like legs. They are notable for the enormous sizes attained by some species, and the group includes the largest animals to have ever lived on land. Well-known genus, genera include ''Apatosaurus'', ''Argentinosaurus'', ''Alamosaurus'', ''Brachiosaurus'', ''Camarasaurus'', ''Diplodocus,'' and ''Mamenchisaurus''. The oldest known unequivocal sauropod dinosaurs are known from the Early Jurassic. ''Isanosaurus'' and ''Antetonitrus'' were originally described as Triassic sauropods, but their age, and in the case of ''Antetonitrus'' also its sauropod status, were subsequently questioned. Sauropod-like sauropodomorph tracks from the Fleming Fjord Formation (Greenland) might, however, indicate the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stegosaurid
Stegosauria is a group of herbivorous ornithischian dinosaurs that lived during the Jurassic and early Cretaceous periods. Stegosaurian fossils have been found mostly in the Northern Hemisphere (North America, Europe and Asia), Africa and South America. Their geographical origins are unclear; the earliest unequivocal stegosaurian, '' Bashanosaurus primitivus'', was found in the Bathonian Shaximiao Formation of China. Stegosaurians were armored dinosaurs (thyreophorans). Originally, they did not differ much from more primitive members of that group, being small, low-slung, running animals protected by armored scutes. An early evolutionary innovation was the development of spikes as defensive weapons. Later species, belonging to a subgroup called the Stegosauridae, became larger, and developed long hindlimbs that no longer allowed them to run. This increased the importance of active defence by the thagomizer, which could ward off even large predators because the tail was in a highe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tail
The tail is the elongated section at the rear end of a bilaterian animal's body; in general, the term refers to a distinct, flexible appendage extending backwards from the midline of the torso. In vertebrate animals that evolution, evolved to lose their tails (e.g. frogs and hominid primates), the coccyx is the homologous vestigial of the tail. While tails are primarily considered a feature of vertebrates, some invertebrates such as scorpions and springtails, as well as snails and slugs, have tail-like appendages that are also referred to as tails. Tail-shaped objects are sometimes referred to as "caudate" (e.g. lobes of liver#Caudate lobe, caudate lobe, caudate nucleus), and the body part associated with or proximal to the tail are given the adjective "caudal (anatomical term), caudal" (which is considered a more precise anatomical terminology). Function Animal tails are used in a variety of ways. They provide a source of thrust for aquatic locomotion for fish, cetaceans and cr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thagomizer
A thagomizer () is the distinctive arrangement of spike-shaped osteoderms on the tails of some stegosaurian dinosaurs. These spikes are believed to have been a defensive measure against predators. The arrangement of spikes originally had no distinct name. Cartoonist Gary Larson invented the name "thagomizer" in 1982 as a joke in his comic strip ''The Far Side'', and it was gradually adopted as an informal term sometimes used within scientific circles, research, and education. Etymology The term ''thagomizer'' was coined by Gary Larson in jest. In a 1982 ''The Far Side'' comic, a group of cavemen are taught by a caveman lecturer that the spikes on a stegosaur's tail were named "after the late Thag Simmons". The term was picked up initially by Kenneth Carpenter, then a paleontologist at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, who used the term when describing a fossil at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Annual Meeting in 1993. ''Thagomizer'' has since been adopted as an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
