The Sunday Guardian

DINOSAUR FROM THE AZTEC WAR CLUB

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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.

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