A new genus and species of armored ankylosaurian dinosaur has been identified from fossils found on the Isle of Wight, the United Kingdom.

Vectipelta barretti belongs to Ankylosauria, a diverse group of dinosaurs known from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.

These herbivores are characterized by a broad body, short limbs and an extensive covering of dermal armor on the head, body and tail.

Their fossils are known from all continents, but they are best known from the better-sampled former Laurasian continents of North America, Asia and Europe.

Vectipelta barretti lived in what is now Europe during the Early Cretaceous epoch, approximately 130 million years ago.

The dinosaur’s fossilized remains were found in the Wessex Formation on the Isle of Wight, the United Kingdom.

“This is an important specimen because it sheds light on ankylosaur diversity within the Wessex Formation and Early Cretaceous England,” said Dr. Stuart Pond from the Natural History Museum, London.

“For virtually 142 years, all ankylosaur remains from the Isle of Wight have been assigned to Polacanthus foxii, a famous dinosaur from the island, now all of those finds need to be revisited because we’ve described this new species.”

According to Dr. Pond nad colleagues, Vectipelta barretti is 6-8 million years older than Polacanthus foxii, and at least 3 million years younger than Hylaeosaurus armatus, another species of ankylosaur from the United Kingdom.

“The new species differs from Polacanthus foxii, previously the only known ankylosaur from the Isle of Wigh, in several key characteristics,” they said.

“The fossilized remains show differences in the neck and back vertebrae, a very different structure to the pelvis and more blade-like spiked armor.”

The authors also used phylogenetic analysis to work out the relationships between different ankylosaurs and discovered that they are not actually very closely related.

In fact, Vectipelta barretti was found to be most closely related to some Chinese ankylosaurs, suggesting dinosaurs moved freely from Asia to Europe in the Early Cretaceous.

“Vectipelta barretti would have been roaming the earth during the Early Cretaceous, a time for which fossil remains are rare worldwide,” the paleontologists said.

“This has led some to suggest that a mass extinction occurred at the end of the Jurassic, which makes the understanding of dinosaur diversity at this time crucial to understanding if such an event occurred and how life recovered.”

“With rocks from this time mostly absent in North America, the Wessex Formation and the Isle of Wight are hugely important areas in answering these questions.”

“At the time the Isle of Wight would have had a climate similar to that of the Mediterranean and was a flood plain covered by a large meandering river system.”

“Floods would have washed organic material such as plants, logs and even dinosaur bodies together and, as waters receded, this organic matter would have been isolated in ponds on the floodplain that eventually dried out and were buried in the clay soil, preserving this organic material as the fossils we find today.”

The researchers are optimistic that more species will be discovered in the Wessex Formation in the future.

“We have new iguanodontians that we are lining up, to be prepped and to be studied,” said Dr. Susannah Maidment, also from the Natural History Museum, London.

“I think we have at least two new taxa in the collections.”

“With regards to ankylosaurs, they are somewhat rarer, so I think we need to keep our eyes peeled.”

Sources :

Published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology ; doi: 10.1080/14772019.2023.2210577

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