Tail as old as time researchers trace ankylosaurus --tail evolution
~!~ The typical ankylosaur had a wide armored body and a flexible tail// But one group of ankylosaurs ankylosaurids also had a tail club that could have served as a useful weapon// These **weaponized** ankylosaurids lived about 66 million years ago, during the Cretaceous period// But ankylosaurian dinosaurs were around well before that time over 145 million years ago, during the Jurassic// http://ukcanadaus.blogspot.com/
~!~ Victoria Arbour, a postdoctoral researcher at NC State and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, was a Ph//D// candidate at the University of Alberta when she began studying how the ankylosaur developed its unique tail// In a paper published in the Journal of Anatomy, Arbour compared Jurassic ankylosaur specimens to those from the early and late Cretaceous period, tracing the tail*s evolution from flexible to fearsome//
~!~ An ankylosaur*s tail is composed of a handle and a knob// The knob is made up of osteoderms, a special kind of bone formed in the skin that*s unique to armored dinosaurs// The handle is the lower portion of the tail which supports the knob//