Overview

• Recovered near Boulemane in Morocco’s Middle Atlas, the partial skeleton includes ribs with attached spines, a robust cervical collar and caudal material dated to roughly 174.7–161.5 million years ago.
• The armour shows a configuration not seen in any other vertebrate, with spines fused to every preserved rib and collar spines preserved at 87 centimeters that likely approached a meter in life.
• The international team led by Susannah Maidment of the Natural History Museum and Richard Butler of the University of Birmingham reports the findings in Nature and formally names the species Spicomellus afer.
• Authors propose the exaggerated spines may have served display and deterrence, offering insight into why later Cretaceous ankylosaurs evolved simpler, more utilitarian armour under different predator pressures.
• Although the tail tip was not found, fused caudal vertebrae indicate a handle‑like base consistent with a clubbed tail seen in younger ankylosaur lineages.