Anodontosaurus

What it was like

Anodontosaurus was a club-tailed ankylosaur, low and wide, with bony armor across its back and a heavy club at the end of its tail. Its tail club was flattened and ended in pointed knobs.

Its name means "toothless lizard" because the first skull was found without its teeth, though in life it had small, leaf-shaped teeth like other ankylosaurs.

Its world

It lived in the Late Cretaceous in what is now Alberta, Canada. Its bones come from the Horseshoe Canyon and Dinosaur Park formations, where it shared the land with Euoplocephalus, the armored Edmontonia and the ostrich-like Ornithomimus and Struthiomimus.

How it was found

Sternberg named Anodontosaurus in 1929. For decades it was treated as a form of Euoplocephalus, until a study of its tail club and armor showed it deserved its own genus again. About 13 finds are now known.