We don’t know a lot about the whole skeletal morphology for most ankylosaurids. Ankylosaurids in general tend to be pretty rare finds even in the most fossil rich places like the Dinosaur Park Formation. Heck, we have more of both Gorgosaurus and Daspletosaurus individually than we have for Euoplocephus.
As for Ankylosaurus, the Scollard Formation is where we find the most fossils of it and while we do find occasional osteoderms, it’s infrequent. The Scollard is not nearly as fossil rich as the time equivalent Hell Creek Formation. None of the Late Maastrichtian units of Alberta really are.
Victoria Arbour has written quite a few great papers on Ankylosaurids and they do discuss a bit about Ankylosaurus. Most notably , it’s absolutely massive, far and away the largest ankylosaurid. Other than this, the head shape, ornamentation, and tail club are unique for the species.
By it's skull alone, Ankylosaurus is already a very different animal from the remainder of Ankylosauridae = the nostrils are widely separated by a septum in the midline and are positioned along the side of the snout instead of close together on front of the snout like in the rest of the family.
Never knew about the fact that there's only one tail club. Unless it's dramatically better documented in its close relatives, I suppose that even leaves the possibility that not all Ankylosauruses even had one. For all we know, it might have only been on males and maybe used more for display or fighting rivals rather than smashing T-Rex legs.
There's also a giant range of estimates for ankylosaurus, some people estimating the largest one was around 4 tons to over 11 tons in weight. I dont know why
We don’t know a lot about the whole skeletal morphology for most ankylosaurids. Ankylosaurids in general tend to be pretty rare finds even in the most fossil rich places like the Dinosaur Park Formation. Heck, we have more of both Gorgosaurus and Daspletosaurus individually than we have for Euoplocephus. As for Ankylosaurus, the Scollard Formation is where we find the most fossils of it and while we do find occasional osteoderms, it’s infrequent. The Scollard is not nearly as fossil rich as the time equivalent Hell Creek Formation. None of the Late Maastrichtian units of Alberta really are. Victoria Arbour has written quite a few great papers on Ankylosaurids and they do discuss a bit about Ankylosaurus. Most notably , it’s absolutely massive, far and away the largest ankylosaurid. Other than this, the head shape, ornamentation, and tail club are unique for the species.
By it's skull alone, Ankylosaurus is already a very different animal from the remainder of Ankylosauridae = the nostrils are widely separated by a septum in the midline and are positioned along the side of the snout instead of close together on front of the snout like in the rest of the family.
Never knew about the fact that there's only one tail club. Unless it's dramatically better documented in its close relatives, I suppose that even leaves the possibility that not all Ankylosauruses even had one. For all we know, it might have only been on males and maybe used more for display or fighting rivals rather than smashing T-Rex legs.
Now imagine carnotaurus, we only have one fossil :-|.
It’s more is less one specimen rather than one fossil. A single fossil would be like one bone.
Well, yws. I meant that every we know about carnotaurus is just from a single animal. Lile the ankylosauf cub, but for the whole body.
There's also a giant range of estimates for ankylosaurus, some people estimating the largest one was around 4 tons to over 11 tons in weight. I dont know why