A "jaw-droppingly weird" dinosaur has been pictured for the first time ever.
New images from have detailed the nearly-metre-long spikes which adorned the Spicomellus, an ancient relative of the Ankylosaurus, found in Morocco.
On Wednesday, researchers unveiled details of dinosaur fossils discovered in 2022 and 2023 in the Atlas Mountains near the town of Boulemane.
The beast would have measured around four metres (13 feet) long, and could have weighed up to two tonnes.
The Spicomellus is the largest-known species in the group of tank-like armoured dinosaurs known as ankylosaurs which walked on four legs and were squat, slow-moving plant-eaters.
A 'jaw-droppingly weird' dinosaur has been described for the first time ever
|REUTERS
Professor Richard Butler, a Vertebrate Paleontologist from the University of Birmingham who co-led the research published in the journal Nature, said: "The armour of the Spicomellus is jaw-droppingly weird, unlike that of any other animal alive or dead - that we've ever discovered.
"Not only did it have a series of sharp, long spikes on each of its ribs - unknown elsewhere among animals - but it had spines the length of golf clubs sticking out in a collar around its neck.
"The armour surely had some defensive function, but it's difficult to imagine how the metre-long spikes around the neck were used for defence. They seem like enormous overkill."
Dr Susannah Maidment, the study lead author and a Vertebrate Paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London, explained that in living animals, large, potentially awkward structures with no obvious functions - like a deer's antlers or a peacock's tail - are often associated with sex.
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The beast would have measured around four metres in length, and could have weighed up to two tonnes
|REUTERS
Dr Maidment added: "They could have been used in courtship or territorial displays, or to fight against members of the same species during competitions for mates.
"Spicomellus' armour is totally impractical, and would have been a bit annoying in dense vegetation, for example.
"So we think that it is possible the animal evolved such elaborate armour for some sort of display, perhaps to do with mating."
Though only an incomplete skeleton was found among the fossils, it provides a much better image of the dinosaur, which was previously only known from a single rib fragment described in 2021.
Although not the entire skeleton was found in the fossils, it provides a very good image of the dinosaur
|REUTERS
Despite the end of its tail being among the missing fossils, distinctive fused tail vertebrae suggested that the dinosaur possessed a weapon at the end of its tail - perhaps a club or spikes.
Prof Butler added: "The armour of the Spicomellus is much more elaborate than that of later ankylosaurs, and no later ankylosaurs have spiky ribs.
"What is surprising to us is that the most elaborate ankylosaur armour of all time is present in the oldest member of the group.
"Perhaps the simpler armour in later species reflects a shift towards the armour having a primarily defensive function due to increased predation pressure in the Cretaceous," he added - a period when predators became exceptionally large.