Paleontologists Uncover First Known Tracks From Club-Tailed Armored Dinosaur

Ankylosaurs, a group of dinosaurs often compared to Pokémon, were built like walking tanks, with bony armor plating their backs and sides. They lived during the Late Jurassic (164 to 145 million years ago) and Cretaceous (145 to 66 million years ago) periods, and consisted of two main subgroups: the nodosaurids, which lacked tail clubs and typically had four toes on both hands and feet; and the ankylosaurids, which had distinctive clubbed tails and usually three toes on their hind feet. While paleontologists have unearthed four-toed ankylosaur footprints throughout North America, three-toed ones have remained elusive—until now. An international team of researchers has identified the first ankylosaurid footprints known to science. The 100-million-year-old fossilized footprints, discovered in Canada’s Peace Region (spanning the provinces of British Columbia and Alberta), represent a new ankylosaurid species, which the team named Ruopodosaurus clava. The discovery also fills in a notorio ... Read full article.