(Reuters) -Around 165 million years ago on a coastal floodplain in what is now Morocco lived one of the most extreme dinosaurs on record, lavishly adorned with armor and spikes – some about three feet (one meter) long – unlike that of any other known creature.

Researchers on Wednesday described extensive fossilized remains discovered in the Atlas Mountains near the Moroccan town of Boulemane of a Jurassic Period dinosaur named Spicomellus. Roughly 13 feet (four meters) long and weighing perhaps one to two tons, Spicomellus is the oldest-known member of a group of tank-like armored dinosaurs called ankylosaurs, squat and slow-moving plant-eaters that walked on four legs.

“The armor of Spicomellus is jaw-droppingly weird, unlike that of any other dinosaur – or any other animal alive or dea

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