A study published in Nature on 28 August details the discovery of Spicomellus afer, a 165-million-year-old ankylosaur unearthed in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains that scientists say is the oldest and most elaborately armoured member of its clade. The partial skeleton contains six rib bones tipped with spikes measuring almost one metre, a pelvic shield bristling with long and short spikes, and fused tail vertebrae that formed a potential bludgeon. The bony spikes are fused directly to the ribs—an anatomical arrangement not seen in any other living or extinct vertebrate. Researchers led by Susannah Maidment of the Natural History Museum, London, and Richard Butler of the University of Birmingham estimate the herbivore stretched about four metres and weighed roughly two tonnes. They conclude the extravagant armour likely served both defence and visual display, challenging the view that ankylosaurs evolved complex weaponry only in the Cretaceous. As the earliest known member of its lineage and the first ankylosaur found in Africa, Spicomellus pushes the evolutionary timeline of the group back by at least 15 million years and highlights the Atlas Mountains as a significant source of Middle Jurassic vertebrate fossils.