DINOSAUR FROM THE AZTEC WAR CLUB
CHILLE: More than half a millennium ago, Aztec warriors brandished a weapon called a macuahuitl, a wooden club with jagged obsidian blades embedded on its sides, to inflict gruesome wounds on enemies in close combat.
A newly identified armored dinosaur that inhabited the Patagonian region of Chile did much the same thing to ward off predators about 74 million years ago with a tail resembling a macuahuitl, scientists said on Wednesday.
The four-legged planteating creature, named Stegouros elengassen, exemplifies the arms race that unfolded during the age of dinosaurs to acquire new traits to survive in a perilous world. It also sheds light on the evolution of a highly successful group of tank-like dinosaurs called ankylosaurs.
Stegouros lived in what is now South America’s southernmost tip during the Cretaceous Period in the twilight of the dinosaur era. It was small relative to other armored dinosaurs, at about 7 feet (2 meters) long. Stegouros possessed a beaklike mouth for cropping plants. Its back and sides were studded with bony structures called osteoderms that served as a coat of armor.
Its tail is utterly unique among dinosaurs. It is relatively short with fewer vertebrae.