Panoplosaurus
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Extinct (fossil)
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| Panoplosaurus mirus Lambe, 1919 |
Panoplosaurus means armoured lizard and was the last known nodosaur. Nodosaurs were herbivores that survived for 120 million years. They belonged to the armored ankylosaurian dinosaur group. The earliest nodosaurs originally appeared 185 million years ago in what was the Middle Jurassic period. Panoplosaurus arrived 100 million years later in the Late Cretaceous and survived until the end of the dinosaurs.
It lived in what is now North America; fossils have been located in Montana and Alberta. Its size was 5.5-7 m long and was 2 m tall. It weighed approximately 3.5 tonnes and ate low growing plants. They did not possess a club like tail but had a helmet of bony plates over its head. Bands of stud covered plates covered its back to tail. Spikes jutted outwards from its shoulders.
Unlike other nodosaurs it is believed that Panoplosaurus may have fought attackers and charged at them with its shoulder spikes instead of hiding under their body armour.
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