Dinosaurs & Prehistory - Dinosaurs - Ankylosaurus - Dinosaur anatomy - Cretaceous
What was the heavy tail club of Ankylosaurus probably used for?
Correct!
Ankylosaurus was a heavily armored herbivore of the Late Cretaceous. In addition to bony plates on its body, it had a massive bony club at the end of its tail. The Natural History Museum considers it likely to be used for defense against large predatory dinosaurs. For a long time, it was mainly imagined that ankylosaurs used them to hit the legs of attacking tyrannosaurs. Studies of other ankylosaurs now also provide evidence that tail clubs could have been used in fights between conspecifics. It is not possible to determine with certainty from the fossils which function predominated in Ankylosaurus itself. The tail club was not a simple thickening. In club-bearing ankylosaurs, stiffened or interconnected caudal vertebrae formed a sturdy handle with large bone structures at the end.
The tail club of the Ankylosaurus was probably an effective weapon, especially for defense and possibly also in confrontations with other animals.
