WEBVTT - How Did Ankylosaurus Work? 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:06.800 Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain 0:00:06.800 --> 0:00:11.080 Stuff Lauren Bogelbaum here, it's hard to read anything about 0:00:11.160 --> 0:00:14.880 dinosaurs without bringing along preconceived notions of what the creatures 0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:17.919 might have looked or acted like. Most people have either 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:20.880 read books as children or watched television or movies that 0:00:20.920 --> 0:00:25.360 depicted dinosaurs as massive and monstrous creatures seeking to destroy 0:00:25.560 --> 0:00:29.120 or devour anything in their path. Some of those animals, 0:00:29.160 --> 0:00:33.479 like Tyrannosaurus, were huge predators, but not all dinosaurs fit 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:39.120 that bill. Enter the anchylosaur. This four legged dino was 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:43.200 certainly big. The largest anchylosaurus ever found was over twenty 0:00:43.200 --> 0:00:46.159 ft or six meters long and weighed around four tons. 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:50.360 But and Kylosaurus was an herbivore plant eating tank of 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:54.600 an animal, and we do mean tank. The Ankylosaurus was 0:00:54.680 --> 0:00:57.560 covered with thick bony plates, a defense that came in 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:01.920 handy for this hefty herbivore and lented name and Kylosaurus 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:05.920 means fused lizard in Greek. The bony plates were fused 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:08.840 to the dinosaurs skull and other body parts, making it 0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:13.600 extremely sturdy. We spoke via email with Dr Hans Seuss, 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:16.680 the senior research geologist and curator of Fossil Vertebrates in 0:01:16.720 --> 0:01:20.639 the Department of Paleobiology at the Smithsonian Institutions National Museum 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:24.520 of Natural History in Washington, d C. He said the 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:27.520 first line of defense was their outer armor, composed of 0:01:27.520 --> 0:01:31.120 bony plates. In fact, and kylosaurs were so heavily armored 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:34.200 that even their upper eyelid was protected by a bony plate. 0:01:34.800 --> 0:01:37.680 One group of encylosaurs had massive clubs of bone at 0:01:37.680 --> 0:01:39.759 the end of their tails, and they could swing their 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:42.240 tails to inflict massive damage on the legs of an 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:47.000 attacking predator. The Nkylosaurus's body was thick and squat, its 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:51.040 legs sturdy. It had a broad, triangular shaped skull, but 0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:54.160 it was the armor that made the difference. Hard plates 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:57.240 covered with bony spikes jutting from its flanks and bony 0:01:57.320 --> 0:02:02.040 knobs called osteoderms or scutes retreating from its back. Horn 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:04.960 proturbances stood out above each eye and on the sides 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:07.920 of the face. Not all in kylosaurs had the same 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:11.600 armor patterning, but all had armor to protect them from predators, 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:16.520 most notably Tyrannosaurus and the like. And kylosaurs needed that 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:19.200 protection because they spent most of the day eating massive 0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:23.320 amounts of food, stripping leaves from low lying plants. Sus 0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:26.440 said they have small teeth similar to those of present 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:29.680 day plant eating lizards. An amazing discovery of a nearly 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:33.800 perfect ankylosaur skeleton from Alberta in Canada preserved gut contents 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:39.200 that confirmed that ankylosaurs ate plants. However, Sus also shared 0:02:39.200 --> 0:02:43.720 a startling discovery. He said one small boned anchylosaur recently 0:02:43.720 --> 0:02:46.760 discovered in northern China apparently went into lakes and even 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:51.359 ate small fish. The first ankylosaur fossil was discovered by 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:53.880 barn and Brown and the Hell Creek Formation in Montana 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:56.720 in nineteen o six, but in kylosaurs have been found 0:02:56.760 --> 0:03:01.239 in many places throughout the world, including Europe, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:05.720 and North and South America. SEUs said. In fact, one 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:07.880 of the first dinosaurs ever to be discovered was it 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:12.560 anchylosaur from southern England, discovered in eighteen thirty one, and 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:16.120 kylosaurs had a complex nasal system that included a large 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:18.560 cavity volume for the region of the brain that handles 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:22.040 the sense of smell. Study in the Journal of Anatomy 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:25.160 suggested that ankylosaurs may have had a highly developed sense 0:03:25.160 --> 0:03:28.280 of smell in order to find food and avoid predators. 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:32.440 We don't know whether or not in kylosaurs were social 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:35.840 as adults, so whether they moved in herds. According to SEUs, 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:38.560 there's simply no evidence one way or the other. Though 0:03:38.600 --> 0:03:41.160 he said that a group of very young and kylosaurs 0:03:41.160 --> 0:03:45.160 were discovered in the Gobi Desert, and though in Kylosaur's 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:47.640 armor and body type might bring to mind thoughts of 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:51.880 alligators and crocodiles, SEUs says they're not related. Birds are 0:03:51.920 --> 0:03:56.640 still the closest living relatives of all dinosaurs. Interestingly, and 0:03:56.760 --> 0:03:59.800 Kylosaurus was estimated to have lived between sixty six point 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:02.360 eight million to sixty five point five million years ago 0:04:02.400 --> 0:04:05.920 in North America during the Late Cretaceous period, which means 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:09.240 and kylosaurs were among the last dinosaurs roaming the earth. 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:13.080 According to the U S Geological Survey, denosaurs went extinct 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:15.320 about sixty five billion years ago at the end of 0:04:15.360 --> 0:04:21.120 the Cretaceous period. One fascinating and kylosaur discovery in in 0:04:21.160 --> 0:04:25.360 Montana's Judith River Formation, for a striking and spiky resemblance 0:04:25.360 --> 0:04:28.560 to the mythical monster zul from the movie Ghostbusters. You 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:31.640 know there is no data, only zul the terror dogs 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:35.360 that Dana and Lewis turn into. The paleontologists who made 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:37.919 the discovery were so struck by the similarity between the 0:04:37.960 --> 0:04:40.599 recovered skull and the movie monster that they named the 0:04:40.640 --> 0:04:45.159 specimen zul care vastatur, which means destroyer of shins in 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:49.159 Latin and refers to then kylosaurs club like leg crushing tail. 0:04:54.400 --> 0:04:56.920 Today's episode was written by Patty Rescus and produced by 0:04:56.920 --> 0:04:59.040 Tyler Klang. For more in this and lots of other 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:01.839 topics that were very big and Samaria, visit how stuff 0:05:01.839 --> 0:05:04.120 works dot com. Brain Stuff is a production of I 0:05:04.160 --> 0:05:06.760 heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the 0:05:06.760 --> 0:05:09.479 iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to 0:05:09.480 --> 0:05:10.279 your favorite shows.