Spicomellus
Spicomellus (meaning "collar of spikes") is an extinct genus of herbivorous ankylosaurian dinosaur that lived in the supercontinent Gondwana during the Middle Jurassic Period. The type and only known species is Spicomellus afer, named and described in 2021. Its remains were found in the third subunit of the El Mers Group (Bathonian-Callovian), near Boulahfa, south of Boulemane, Fès-Meknès, Morocco. The genus name means "spiked collar", from the Latin 'spica' meaning spike, and 'mellum' meaning spiked dog collar and the specific name 'afer' means "the African".
| Spicomellus Temporal range: Middle Jurassic, | |
|---|---|
| Illustration of the holotype. | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Clade: | Dinosauria |
| Clade: | †Ornithischia |
| Clade: | †Thyreophora |
| Suborder: | †Ankylosauria |
| Genus: | †Spicomellus Maidment et al., 2021 |
| Species: | †S. afer |
| Binomial name | |
| †Spicomellus afer Maidment et al., 2021 | |
During the Jurassic, eurypodan dinosaurs, in particular stegosaurs, were diverse and abundant in Laurasia (nowadays the northern continents), but their remains are extremely rare in Gondwanan deposits, nowadays the southern continents. Nevertheless, the existence of fragmentary remains and trackways in the deposits of Gondwana indicates the presence of eurypodan taxa there. Spicomellus is the second described eurypodan taxon from North Africa, after Adratiklit, and the oldest known ankylosaur from anywhere in the world, with the possible exception of an unnamed thyreophoran from the Isle of Skye, Scotland that could be up to 2 million years older than Spicomellus, though it is still unknown if this older species was a stegosaur or an ankylosaur. The holotype, NHMUK PV R37412, is housed at the Natural History Museum in London.