Ankylosaurus
This is the last and possibly the most famous of the ankylosaurids. Ankylosaurus is big, wide, heavy and covered in bony plates. This is one well protected dinosaur, and most predators have to think twice before trying to tackle it.
Bulky
The body of Ankylosaurus is all about defence, being covered in thick plates of bone fused into the dinosaur’s skin. This forms a hard, shell-like structure over the creature; it even has bony plates over its eyes. Not only that, but its body is covered in rows of short spikes. As if that weren’t enough, Ankylosaurus also has a heavy, bony club at the end of its tail.
Under attack
If Ankylosaurus finds itself cornered in an attack, rather than run away, it will crouch low to the ground to protect its underbelly. This means the predator has to try to flip it over to get at the soft part underneath. There are two problems here: first, Ankylosaurus is very, very heavy, and second, the spikes on its body would make it doubly difficult to overturn. Plus, there is always the danger of getting clubbed by that dangerous tail. It could easily break a predator’s leg, and a badly injured dinosaur is more than likely to end up as lunch itself for another meat-eater - one more good reason for predators to find easier prey.
Food Squat
Heavy Ankylosaurus has little choice but to eat low-growing plants. Fortunately, this creature is not a fussy eater, as its wide mouth demonstrates, and it is happy munching on any plant that it stumbles across.
Slow but speedy
Ankylosaurus isn’t the rocket scientist of the dinosaur world, having a very small brain in proportion to its body size, but then it doesn’t really need to think much. However, what it lacks in brains it would seem it makes up for in speed; despite its build and short, stocky legs, some palaeontologists think Ankylosaurus can run quite fast (though only in short bursts).
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