Ankylosaurus was a late Cretaceous ankylosaur. It was the size of an elephant. It lived alongside carnivores such as Tyrannosaurus rex but like all ankylosaurs it was not in any danger from them due to its armored back - which no carnivore would be able to bite through - and a tail club, which could mortally injure a T. rex or any foolish carnivore.
Compared with modern land animals the adult Ankylosaurus was very large. Some scientists have estimated a length of 11 meters (36 feet).
Another reconstruction suggests a much smaller size, at 6.25 meters (20.5 feet) long, up to 1.5 meters (5 feet) wide and about 1.7 meters (5.5 feet) high at the hip.
Ankylosaurus may have weighed over 6,000 kilograms (13,000 lbs), making it one of the heaviest armored dinosaurs yet discovered. The body shape was low-slung and quite wide. It was quadrupedal, with the hind limbs longer than the forelimbs. Although its feet are still unknown, comparisons with other ankylosaurids suggest Ankylosaurus probably had five toes on each foot. The skull was low and triangular in shape, wider than it was long. The largest known skull measures 64.5 centimeters (25 inches) long and 74.5 cm (29 inches) wide.
Their teeth were weaker than ceratopsid and hadrosaurid dinosaurs of the time, so they probably chewed very little.
The armor of Ankylosaurus was made of huge knobs and plates of bone, known as osteoderms or scutes, embedded in the skin. Osteoderms are also found in the skin of crocodiles, armadillos and some lizards. The bone may have been covered by a tough, horny layer of keratin. These osteoderms ranged in size, from wide, flat plates to small, round nodules. The plates were lined up in regular horizontal rows down the animal's neck, back, and hips, with the many smaller nodules protecting the areas between the large plates. Smaller plates may have been on the limbs and tail. Compared to the slightly more ancient Euoplocephalus, the plates of Ankylosaurus were smooth in texture, without the high keels found on the armor of the coexisting nodosaurid Edmontonia. A row of flat, triangular spikes may have stuck out sideways along each side of the tail. Tough, rounded scales protected the top of the skull, while four horns were behind the eyes and the ends of the mouth.
Ankylosaurus was named as the type genus of the family Ankylosauridae.
Ankylosaurus once inhabited the woods, felids, lowlands, grasslands, forests, meadows, plains and the valleys of Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming and Alberta around the Late Cretaceous and a little bit into the Early Paleogene. Dinosaurs that were found in the locations that Ankylosaurus inhabited they shared the same habitat with the armored dinosaur. The wetlands Ankylosaurus and other dinosaurs lived was filled with grass, trees, brooks, streams, creeks, ponds, woodlands, shrubs and ferns.
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