NEW FOSSIL FIND
A TOWNSVILLE scientist has helped discover a new species of dinosaur.
The 76 million- year- old plant eater was armoured with spiked plates and a bony, clublike tail.
James Cook University academic Jelle Wiersma helped describe and name the new dinosaur, akainacephalus johnsoni, which was unveiled yesterday for the first time at the Natural History Museum of Utah.
The PhD candidate said the discovery of the complete skel- eton was an exciting moment in his career but it was not the first dinosaur species he had discovered.
“It’s always exciting to name a new fossil, but it’s equally exciting if the fossils also provide additional insights into the bigger picture of its life,” he said.
Mr Wiersma said the dinosaur would have been 4- 5m long and 1.5m tall with a wide stance to swing its club tail.
He said the tail and plates would most likely have been used for defence against other predatory species.
“Their only weak spot was their belly,” he said. “They would be difficult to topple, they were very wide around the hips. The armadillo is more of a modern analogy.”
Mr Wiersma said the dinosaur would have roamed around North America during the late Cretaceous period.
He said it was dug up in 2004 from a quarry in Utah where a new species of turtle and caiman were also discovered. But it took until 2012 for preparation of the skeleton to finish.
Akainacephalus johnsoni was named after Randy Johnson, a museum volunteer who helped prepare its skull.
Research found the dinosaur was more closely related to species from Asia.
Mr Wiersma said sea levels briefly lowered to allow Asian ankylosaurid dinosaurs to migrate to North America and resulted in two separate groups of ankylosaurid dinosaurs.