Africa’s Oldest Armored Dinosaur: Spicomellus “Blinds” Scientists with Its Bizarre, Meter-Long Spikes

In a find that has left paleontologists stunned, Spicomellus afer — Africa’s oldest and strangest armored dinosaur — has been revealed as the ultimate “punk rock” ankylosaur. Discovered in Morocco’s Middle Atlas Mountains, this 165-million-year-old Jurᴀssic giant boasts meter-long spikes fused directly to its ribs, a feature never seen in any vertebrate before or since.

Led by Dr. Susannah Maidment of the Natural History Museum, London, the team described expanded 2025 Nature material from the El Mers III Formation near Boulemane. The fossils include outward-projecting rib spikes up to one metre long, plus plates, shoulder spikes, hip projections, and early tail-club vertebrae. At roughly 4 metres long and 1–2 tonnes, Spicomellus roamed lush wetlands on ancient Gondwana, its extreme armor likely serving both defense and flamboyant Sєxual display.

Maidment called the anatomy “unlike anything else on Earth,” noting the spikes’ direct bony fusion defies all known armor evolution. Originally named from a single rib in 2021, the new skeleton confirms it as the earliest ankylosaur and the first from Africa, pushing the group’s origin back millions of years and forcing a complete rethink of how these tank-like herbivores developed their iconic defenses.

The discovery proves elaborate spikes appeared far earlier than the simplified armor of later species, highlighting Jurᴀssic Africa as a cradle of bizarre experimentation. With the specimen now dazzling museum visitors worldwide, Spicomellus afer — “African spiky collar” — stands as living proof that even the oldest armored dinosaurs could blind science with their outrageous, rule-breaking design.