Spicomellus: the punk rock dinosaur of the Jurassic
16 February
Monday 16 February (Indoor Meeting): 'Spicomellus: the punk rock dinosaur of the Jurassic'. Speaker: Richard Butler (Professor of Palaeobiology at the University of Birmingham).
In 2021, palaeontologists from the Natural History Museum, London (NHM), and Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University (USMBA), Fes, described a bizarre fossil from the Jurassic (~165 million years ago) of the Middle Atlas Mountains, Morocco. The fossil was just a single incomplete rib, but a rib like none other ever discovered as it had armour plates with long spikes fused to the outside of it. The team named it Spicomellus afer and hypothesised that it belonged to an ankylosaur, a group of low, squat, tank-like, plant-eating dinosaurs covered in armour. This interpretation was controversial given how incomplete and weird the fossil was. In 2023, our team from the University of Birmingham, NHM and USMBA returned to the Middle Atlas and collected a partial skeleton of Spicomellus, including multiple ribs, armour from all over the body, vertebrae and bones of the shoulder girdle and pelvis. This discovery proves definitively that Spicomellus is the geologically oldest known ankylosaur, but also that it is one of the strangest dinosaurs ever discovered. Spicomellus bristles with spikes, including a bizarre collar around the neck from which project spikes stretching up to a metre in length. I will describe the discovery of this ‘punk rock dinosaur’, how it overturns much of what we thought we knew about ankylosaur evolution, the challenges of working in an area where commercial dealers poach fossils for sale on international markets, and the potential that discoveries like this have for sustainable development and tourism.
Richard Butler is a Professor of Palaeobiology at the University of Birmingham. His research focuses on Mesozoic vertebrate evolution, particularly the early evolution of dinosaurs in the Triassic and Jurassic. He is a field-based researcher, with current projects in the Middle Jurassic of England, Scotland, Morocco and Kyrgyzstan. He also co-leads the Earth Heritage Network at the University of Birmingham, which aims to bring together researchers, practitioners, and policy makers from across the natural, physical and social sciences, arts, and humanities to develop innovative, cross-disciplinary approaches to long-standing and emerging challenges around the protection and use of geological resources.