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Ankylosaurs Had Composite Armor

Posted by timothy on from the carbon-fiber-steering-wheels-too dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Ankylosaurs were the most heavily armored dinosaurs. Researchers thought their protective plates were a lot like modern crocodiles. But a new study by a University of Bonn grad student Torsten Scheyer found that fibers in the plates were woven for strength and lightness much like Kevlar or fiberglass. Good thing, as ankylosaurs had to contend with T. rex."

2 of 34 comments (clear)

  1. Re:how do they know what it was made of? by Mattcelt · · Score: 5, Informative

    Imagine a fish who dies and is fossilized. The scales show up as patterns in the fossil, right? In fact, depending on how it's preserved, sometimes you can cut through them and see a fairly accurate cross-section of the scales.

    Now imagine a woven rush basket that somehow becomes fossilized (not likely, but just go with it). Now looking at the fossil, you're going to see the rises and falls of the individual reeds as they transverse all the perpendicular reeds in the design, and you'll be able to see the remnants of the grain running across and down the design as well. That's the sort of thing the student was studying - the anklyosaurus had a similar structure, only on a much smaller scale.

    Fossilization doesn't turn something into a piece of amorphous rock - it preserves the topography (at least) of what was fossilized. So it's possible to examine not only the major features (skeletal structure, etc.) but also minor ones which were preserved. Some fossils, if preserved before flesh decay occurred (frozen instantly, caught in a tar pit, etc.) can even have the features of skin imprinted on the rock. That's how we know archeopteryx had feathers, for instance.

    Hope that helps!

  2. Re:kevlar and fiberglass? by SEE · · Score: 2, Informative

    You're comparing bonded fiberglass to non-bonded Kevlar vests. Bonded Kevlar is rigid and quite effective against impaling attacks, while non-bonded fiberglass is quite useless as protection against anything.

    Anklyosaur armor is, from the description of fibers through the bone, analogous to bonded Kevlar or fiberglass.

    The article is somewhat misleading, since unbonded Kevlar is the material protective vests are usually made from, not bonded. (Though there are bonded Kevlar armors, they're rather more a special-use item than your average bulletproof vest.) I imagine the writer and his editor didn't fully understand the comparisons made by the researcher.