University of Birmingham Archivi

Biology

A “bizarre” armoured dinosaur, Spicomellus afer, with 1 metre spikes sticking out from its neck

By ScientifiCult 27 August 2025

New fossils show how “bizarre” armoured dinosaur, Spicomellus afer, had 1 metre spikes sticking out from its neck

Research fossils show that the famous tail weapons of ankylosaurs evolved much earlier than previously thought

The world’s most unusual dinosaur is even stranger than first realised…

Today, research published in Nature reports that Spicomellus afer had a tail weapon more than 30 million years before any other ankylosaur, as well as a unique bony collar ringed with metre-long spikes sticking out from either side of its neck.

Spicomellus is the world’s oldest ankylosaur, having lived more than 165 million years ago in the Middle Jurassic near what is now the Moroccan town of Boulemane. It was the first ankylosaur to be found on the African continent.

The province Fes Meknes, within which the Boulemane Province has been located since 2015. Picture by Rherrad, CC BY-SA 4.0

New remains of Spicomellus found by a team of palaeontologists have helped to build upon the original description of the unusual animal. The initial description of the species was published in 2021 and was based on one rib bone. The team now know that the animal had bony spikes fused onto and projecting from all of its ribs, a feature not seen in any other vertebrate species living or extinct. It had long spikes, measuring 87 centimetres, which authors believe would have been even longer during the animal’s life, that emerged from a bony collar that sat around its neck.

Prof Susannah Maidment of Natural History Museum, London, and the University of Birmingham, who co-led the team of researchers said, “To find such elaborate armour in an early ankylosaur changes our understanding of how these dinosaurs evolved. It shows just how significant Africa’s dinosaurs are, and how important it is to improve our understanding of them.”

“Spicomellus had a diversity of plates and spikes extending from all over its body, including metre-long neck spikes, huge upwards-projecting spikes over the hips, and a whole range of long, blade-like spikes, pieces of armour made up of two long spikes, and plates down the shoulder. We’ve never seen anything like this in any animal before”

“It’s particularly strange as this is the oldest known ankylosaur, so we might expect that a later species might have inherited similar features, but they haven’t.”

Project co-lead, Professor Richard Butler of the University of Birmingham, said, “Seeing and studying the Spicomellus fossils for the first time was spine-tingling. We just couldn’t believe how weird it was and how unlike any other dinosaur, or indeed any other animal we know of alive or extinct. It turns much of what we thought we knew about ankylosaurs and their evolution on its head and demonstrates just how much there still is to learn about dinosaurs”.

Authors postulate that this array of spikes would have been used for attracting mates and showing off to rivals. Interestingly, similar display armour has not yet been found in any other ankylosaur, with later species possessing armour that probably functioned more for defence.

One explanation for this is that as larger predatory dinosaurs evolved in the Cretaceous, as well as bigger carnivorous mammals, crocodiles and snakes, the rising risk of predation could have driven ankylosaur armour to become simpler and more defensive.

One feature of early ankylosaurs that may have survived, however, is their tail weaponry. While the end of Spicomellus’ tail hasn’t been found, the bones that do survive suggest that it had a club or a similar tail weapon.

Some of the tail vertebrae are fused together to form a structure known as a handle, which has only been found in ankylosaurs with a tail club. However, all these animals lived millions of years later in the Cretaceous.

Authors of the study believe that the combination of a tail weapon and an armoured shield that protected the hips suggest that many of the ankylosaurs’ key adaptations already existed by the time of Spicomellus.

The discovery reinforces the importance of the fossil record in solving evolutionary puzzles and deepening our understanding of the geographic distribution of dinosaurs. It also helps to spark public imagination in dinosaurs as we learn more about the baffling characteristics of species like Spicomellus.

Professor Driss Ouarhache, lead of the Moroccan team from the Université Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah who co-developed the research, says, “This study is helping to drive forward Moroccan science. We’ve never seen dinosaurs like this before, and there’s still a lot more this region has to offer.”

The Spicomellus afer remains that form the basis of this study were cleaned and prepared at the Department of Geology of the Dhar El Mahraz Faculty of Sciences in Fez, Morocco, using scientific equipment provided by the University of Birmingham’s Research England International Strategy and Partnership Fund. The fossils are now catalogued and stored on this site.

The paper ‘Extreme armour in the world’s oldest ankylosaur’ is available now in Nature.

This research is part of the Natural History Museum’s Evolution of Life Research Theme that seeks to reveal the causes and consequences of evolutionary and environmental change, which is central to understanding life on Earth. It is also a contribution from the Earth Heritage Network at the University of Birmingham, which seeks to develop new ways to use palaeontological resources for the benefit of society.

Bibliographic information:

Maidment, S.C.R., Ouarhache, D., Ech-charay, K. et al. Extreme armour in the world’s oldest ankylosaur, Nature (2025), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09453-6

Press release from the University of Birmingham.

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Astronomy

GW231123: LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA detect most massive black hole merger to date

By ScientifiCult 14 July 2025

GW231123: LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA detect most massive black hole merger to date

Gravitational waves from massive black holes challenge current astrophysical models

The LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) Collaboration has detected the merger of the most massive black holes ever observed with gravitational waves using the US National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded LIGO observatories. The powerful merger produced a final black hole approximately 225 times the mass of our Sun. The signal, designated GW231123, was detected during the fourth observing run of the LVK network on November 23, 2023.

The two black holes that merged were approximately 103 and 137 times the mass of the Sun. In addition to their high masses they are also rapidly spinning, making this a uniquely challenging signal to interpret and suggesting the possibility of a complex formation history.

“The discovery of such a massive and highly spinning system presents a challenge not only to our data analysis techniques – says Ed Porter, researcher at the Astroparticle and Cosmology laboratory (APC) of CNRS in Paris – but will have a major effect on the theoretical studies of black hole formation channels and waveform modelling for many years to come. Actually, current models of stellar evolution do not allow the existence of such massive black holes, which could possibly have formed through previous mergers of smaller black holes.”

Approximately 100 black-hole mergers have previously been observed through gravitational waves, analysed and shared with the wider scientific community. Until now the most massive binary was the source of GW190521, with a much smaller total mass of “only” 140 times that of the sun.

Before now, the most massive black hole merger—produced by an event that took place in 2021 called GW190521—had a total mass of 140 times that of the Sun.

In the more recent GW231123 event, the 225-solar-mass black hole was created by the coalescence of black holes each approximately 100 and 140 times the mass of the Sun.

In addition to their high masses, the black holes are also rapidly spinning.

“This is the most massive black hole binary we’ve observed through gravitational waves, and it presents a real challenge to our understanding of black hole formation,” says Mark Hannam of Cardiff University and a member of the LVK Collaboration. “Black holes this massive are forbidden through standard stellar evolution models. One possibility is that the two black holes in this binary formed through earlier mergers of smaller black holes.”

Dave Reitze, the executive director of LIGO at Caltech, says, “This observation once again demonstrates how gravitational waves are uniquely revealing the fundamental and exotic nature of black holes throughout the universe.”

A record-breaking system

The high mass and extremely rapid spinning of the black holes in GW231123 push the limits of both gravitational-wave detection technology and current theoretical models. Extracting accurate information from the signal required the use of models that account for the intricate dynamics of highly spinning black holes.

“The black holes appear to be spinning very rapidly—near the limit allowed by Einstein’s theory of general relativity,” explains Charlie Hoy of the University of Portsmouth and a member of the LVK. “That makes the signal difficult to model and interpret. It’s an excellent case study for pushing forward the development of our theoretical tools.”

Researchers are continuing to refine their analysis and improve the models used to interpret such extreme events. “It will take years for the community to fully unravel this intricate signal pattern and all its implications,” says Gregorio Carullo of the University of Birmingham and a member of the LVK. “Despite the most likely explanation remaining a black hole merger, more complex scenarios could be the key to deciphering its unexpected features. Exciting times ahead!”

Probing the limits of gravitational-wave astronomy

The high mass and extremely rapid spinning of the black holes in GW231123 pushes the limits of both gravitational-wave detection technology and current theoretical models. Extracting accurate information from the signal required the use of theoretical models that account for the complex dynamics of highly spinning black holes.

“This event pushes our instrumentation and data-analysis capabilities to the edge of what’s currently possible,” says Dr. Sophie Bini, a postdoctoral researcher at Caltech, previously at the University of Trento. “It’s a powerful example of how much we can learn from gravitational-wave astronomy—and how much more there is to uncover.”

Gravitational-wave detectors such as LIGO in the United States, Virgo in Italy, and KAGRA in Japan are designed to measure minute distortions in spacetime caused by violent cosmic events like black hole mergers. The fourth observing run began in May 2023 and observations from the first half of the run (up to January 2024) will be published later in the summer.

“With the longest continuous observation to date and enhanced sensitivity, the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA fourth observing campaign is delivering invaluable new insights into our understanding of the universe –says Viola Sordini, researcher at the Institute of Physics of the 2 Infinities (IP2I) of CNRS in Lyon and deputy spokesperson of the Virgo Collaboration – This exciting discovery opens a new season of results, with many more expected throughout the summer and a continued stream of findings anticipated over the next two years. Publications are followed by release of the data, in support of the broader scientific community and open science”

GW231123 will be presented at the 24th International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation (GR24) and the 16th Edoardo Amaldi Conference on Gravitational Waves, held jointly as the GR-Amaldi meeting in Glasgow, UK, from July 14-18 2025.

LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, made history in 2015 when it made the first-ever direct detection of gravitational waves, ripples in space-time. In that case, the waves emanated from a black hole merger that resulted in a final black hole 62 times the mass of our Sun. The signal was detected jointly by the twin detectors of LIGO, one located in Livingston, Louisiana, and the other in Hanford, Washington.

Since then, the LIGO team has teamed up with partners at the Virgo detector in Italy and KAGRA (Kamioka Gravitational Wave Detector) in Japan to form the LVK Collaboration. These detectors have collectively observed more than 200 black hole mergers in their fourth run, and about 300 in total since the start of the first run in 2015.

The LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration

LIGO is funded by the NSF, and operated by Caltech and MIT, which conceived and built the project. Financial support for the Advanced LIGO project was led by NSF with Germany (Max Planck Society), the U.K. (Science and Technology Facilities Council) and Australia (Australian Research Council) making signiﬁcant commitments and contributions to the project. More than 1,600 scientists from around the world participate in the eQort through the LIGO Scientiﬁc Collaboration, which includes the GEO Collaboration. Additional partners are listed at https://my.ligo.org/census.php.

The Virgo Collaboration is currently composed of approximately 1.000 members from 175 institutions in 20 different (mainly European) countries. The European Gravitational Observatory (EGO) hosts the Virgo detector near Pisa in Italy, and is funded by Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in France, the National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN) in Italy, the National Institute of Subatomic Physics (Nikhef) in the Netherlands, The Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) e the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research (F.R.S.–FNRS). A list of the Virgo Collaboration groups can be found at: https://www.virgo-gw.eu/about/scientiﬁc-collaboration/. More information is available on the Virgo website at https://www.virgo-gw.eu.

KAGRA is the laser interferometer with 3 km arm-length in Kamioka, Gifu, Japan. The host institute is Institute for Cosmic Ray Research (ICRR), the University of Tokyo, and the project is co-hosted by National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) and High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK). KAGRA collaboration is composed of over 400 members from 128 institutes in 17 countries/regions. KAGRA’s information for general audiences is at the website https://gwcenter.icrr.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/. Resources for researchers are accessible from http://gwwiki.icrr.u-tokyo.ac.jp/JGWwiki/KAGRA.

Press release from EGO and California Institute of Technology

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Biology

Fanjingshania renovata, Ancient ‘Shark’ from China Is Humans’ Oldest Jawed Ancestor

By ScientifiCult 29 September 2022

Fanjingshania renovata, an Ancient ‘Shark’ from China Is Humans’ Oldest Jawed Ancestor

Palaeontologists discover a 439-million-year-old ‘shark’ that forces us to rethink the timeline of vertebrate evolution

Living sharks are often portrayed as the apex predators of the marine realm. Paleontologists have been able to identify fossils of their extinct ancestors that date back hundreds of millions of years to a time known as the Palaeozoic period. These early “sharks,” known as acanthodians, bristled with spines. In contrast to modern sharks, they developed bony “armor” around their paired fins.

A recent discovery of a new species of acanthodian from China surprised scientists with its antiquity. The find predates by about 15 million years the earliest acanthodian body fossils and is the oldest undisputed jawed fish.

These findings were published in Nature on Sept. 28.

Fanjingshania renovata, an ancient 'Shark' from China is Humans' oldest jawed ancestor; the study has been published on Nature — Fig. 1 Life reconstruction of Fanjingshania renovata. (Image by ZHANG Heming)

Reconstructed from thousands of tiny skeletal fragments, Fanjingshania, named after the famous UNESCO World Heritage Site Fanjingshan, is a bizarre fish with an external bony “armor” and multiple pairs of fin spines that set it apart from living jawed fish, cartilaginous sharks and rays, and bony ray- and lobe-finned fish.

Examination of Fanjingshania by a team of researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qujing Normal University, and the University of Birmingham revealed that the species is anatomically close to groups of extinct spiny “sharks” collectively known as acanthodians. Unlike modern sharks, acanthodians have skin ossifications of the shoulder region that occur primitively in jawed fish.

Fig. 3 Life reconstruction of Fanjingshania renovata. (Image by FU Boyuan and FU Baozhong)

The fossil remains of Fanjingshania were recovered from bone bed samples of the Rongxi Formation at a site in Shiqian County of Guizhou Province, South China.

These findings present tangible evidence of a diversification of major vertebrate groups tens of millions of years before the beginning of the so called “Age of Fishes” some 420 million years ago.

Fig. 4 Fragment of the pectoral dermal skeleton (part of a pectoral spine fused to shoulder girdle plate) of Fanjingshania renovata shown in ventral view. (Image by Andreev, et al.)

The researchers identified features that set apart Fanjingshania from any known vertebrate. It has dermal shoulder girdle plates that fuse as a unit to a number of spines—pectoral, prepectoral and prepelvic. Additionally, it was discovered that the ventral and lateral portions of the shoulder plates extend to the posterior edge of the pectoral fin spines. The species has distinct trunk scales with crowns composed of a row of tooth-like elements (odontodes) adorned by discontinuous nodose ridges. Peculiarly, dentine development is recorded in the scales but is missing in other components of the dermal skeleton such as the fin spines.

“This is the oldest jawed fish with known anatomy,” said Prof. ZHU Min from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. “The new data allowed us to place Fanjingshania in the phylogenetic tree of early vertebrates and gain much needed information about the evolutionary steps leading to the origin of important vertebrate adaptations such as jaws, sensory systems, and paired appendages.”

From the outset, it was clear to the scientists that Fanjingshania’s shoulder girdle, with its array of fin spines, is key to pinpointing the new species’ position in the evolutionary tree of early vertebrates. They found that a group of acanthodians, known as climatiids, possess the full complement of shoulder spines recognized in Fanjingshania. What is more, in contrast to normal dermal plate development, the pectoral ossifications of Fanjingshania and the climatiids are fused to modified trunk scales. This is seen as a specialization from the primitive condition of jawed vertebrates where the bony plates grow from a single ossification center.

Unexpectedly, the fossil bones of Fanjingshania show evidence of extensive resorption and remodelling that are typically associated with skeletal development in bony fish, including humans.

“This level of hard tissue modification is unprecedented in chondrichthyans, a group that includes modern cartilaginous fish and their extinct ancestors,” said lead author Dr. Plamen Andreev, a researcher at Qujing Normal University. “It speaks about greater than currently understood developmental plasticity of the mineralized skeleton at the onset of jawed fish diversification.”

The resorption features of Fanjingshania are most apparent in isolated trunk scales that show evidence of tooth-like shedding of crown elements and removal of dermal bone from the scale base. Thin-sectioned specimens and tomography slices show that this resorptive stage was followed by deposition of replacement crown elements. Surprisingly, the closest examples of this skeletal remodelling are found in the dentition and skin teeth (denticles) of extinct and living bony fish. In Fanjingshania, however, the resorption did not target individual teeth or denticles, as occurred in bony fish, but instead removed an area that included multiple scale denticles. This peculiar replacement mechanism more closely resembles skeletal repair than the typical tooth/denticle substitution of jawed vertebrates.

A phylogenetic hypothesis for Fanjingshania that uses a numeric matrix derived from observable characters confirmed the researchers’ initial hypothesis that the species represents an early evolutionary branch of primitive chondrichthyans. These results have profound implications for our understanding of when jawed fish originated since they align with morphological clock estimates for the age of the common ancestor of cartilaginous and bony fish, dating it to around 455 million years ago, during a period known as the Ordovician.

These results tell us that the absence of undisputed remains of jawed fish of Ordovician age might be explained by under sampling of sediment sequences of comparable antiquity. They also point towards a strong preservation bias against teeth, jaws, and articulated vertebrate fossils in strata coeval with Fanjingshania.

“The new discovery puts into question existing models of vertebrate evolution by significantly condensing the timeframe for the emergence of jawed fish from their closest jawless ancestors. This will have profound impact on how we assess evolutionary rates in early vertebrates and the relationship between morphological and molecular change in these groups,” said Dr. Ivan J. Sansom from the University of Birmingham.

Press release from the Chinese Academy of Sciences

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Biology

Rare Fossil Teeth from China Overturn Long-held Views about Evolution of Vertebrates

By ScientifiCult 29 September 2022

Rare Fossil Teeth from China Overturn Long-held Views about Evolution of Vertebrates

An international team of researchers has discovered 439-million-year-old remains of a toothed fish that suggest the ancestors of modern osteichthyans (ray- and lobe-finned fish) and chondrichthyans (sharks and rays) originated much earlier than previously thought.

Related findings were published in Nature on Sept. 28.

Rare Fossil Teeth from China Overturn Long-held Views about Evolution of Vertebrates. Fig. 1 Life reconstruction of Qianodus duplicis. (Image by ZHANG Heming)

A remote site in Guizhou Province of south China, containing sequences of sedimentary layers from the distant Silurian period (around 445 to 420 million years ago), has produced spectacular fossil finds, including isolated teeth identified as belonging to a new species (Qianodus duplicis) of primitive jawed vertebrate. Named after the ancient name for modern-day Guizhou, Qianodus possessed peculiar spiral-like dental elements carrying multiple generations of teeth that were added throughout the life of the animal.

The tooth spirals (or whorls) of Qianodus turned out to be one of the least common fossils recovered from the site. They are small elements that rarely reach 2.5 mm and as such had to be studied under magnification with visible light and X-ray radiation.

A conspicuous feature of the whorls is that they contained a pair of teeth rows set into a raised medial area of the whorl base. These so-called primary teeth show an incremental increase in size towards the inner (lingual) portion of the whorl. What makes the whorls of Qianodus unusual in comparison with those of other vertebrates is the clear offset between the two primary teeth rows. A similar arrangement of neighboring teeth rows is also seen in the dentitions of some modern sharks but has not been previously identified in the tooth whorls of fossil species.

The discovery indicates that the well-known jawed vertebrate groups from the so-called “Age of Fishes” (420 to 460 million years ago) were already established some 20 million years earlier.

“Qianodus provides us with the first tangible evidence for teeth, and by extension jaws, from this critical early period of vertebrate evolution,” said LI Qiang from Qujing Normal University.

Unlike the continuously shedding teeth of modern sharks, the researchers believe that the tooth whorls of Qianodus were kept in the mouth and increased in size as the animal grew. This interpretation explains the gradual enlargement of replacement teeth and the widening of the whorl base as a response to the continuous increase in jaw size during development.

For the researchers, the key to reconstructing the growth of the whorls was two specimens at an early stage of formation, easily identified by their noticeably smaller sizes and fewer teeth. A comparison with the more numerous mature whorls provided the palaeontologists with a rare insight into the developmental mechanics of early vertebrate dentitions. These observations suggest that primary teeth were the first to form whereas the addition of the lateral (accessory) whorl teeth occurred later in development.

Fig. 2 Volumetric reconstruction of a tooth whorl viewed from its lingual side (holotype of Qianodus duplicis). The specimen is just over 2 mm in length. (Image by Zhu, et al.)

“Despite their peculiarities, tooth whorls have, in fact, been reported in many extinct chondrichthyan and osteichthyan lineages,”said Plamen Andreev, the lead author of the study. “Some of the early chondrichthyans even built their dentition entirely from closely spaced whorls.”

The researchers claim that this was also the case for Qianodus. They made this conclusion after examining the small (1–2 mm long) whorls of the new species with synchrotron radiation—a CT scanning process that uses high energy X-rays from a particle accelerator.

“We were astonished to discover that the tooth rows of the whorls have a clear left or right offset, which indicates positions on opposing jaw rami,” said Prof. ZHU Min from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Fig. 3 Virtual section along the length of a tooth whorl in side view (holotype of Qianodus duplicis). The specimen is just over 2 mm in length (Image by Zhu, et al.)

These observations are supported by a phylogenetic tree that identifies Qianodus as a close relative to extinct chondrichthyan groups with whorl-based dentitions.

“Our revised timeline for the origin of the major groups of jawed vertebrates agrees with the view that their initial diversification occurred in the early Silurian,” said Prof. ZHU.

The discovery of Qianodus provides tangible proof for the existence of toothed vertebrates and shark-like dentition patterning tens of millions of years earlier than previously thought. The phylogenetic analysis presented in the study identifies Qianodus as a primitive chondrichthyan, implying that jawed fish were already quite diverse in the Lower Silurian and appeared shortly after the evolution of skeletal mineralization in ancestral lineages of jawless vertebrates.

“This puts into question the current evolutionary models for the emergence of key vertebrate innovations such as teeth, jaws, and paired appendages,” said Ivan Sansom, a co-author of the study from the University of Birmingham.

Press release from the Chinese Academy of Sciences about the fossil teeth overturning long-held views on the evolution of vertebrates

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