Of many dinosaurs that roamed the face of earth millions of years ago, some were really vicious and blood-thirty while others were somewhat innocent and decided to live only on veggie diet. Despite this fact, none of them would have been friendly to humans if they ever lived with us.
Even the veggiesaurs would have killed us even if they lovingly patted our backs! The Acanthopholis is one such veggiesaur that lived on earth. Let us learn 10 interesting facts about Acanthopholis and find out what really it looked like.
At a glance
— Lived: 110-100 million years ago.
— Food: Vegetarian.
— Species: A. horrida.
Facts about Acanthopholis: 1-5
1. Acanthopholis is a Greek name which in English means Spiny Scales.
2. Acanthopholis is pronounced as ah-can-THOFF-oh-liss and it lived in the Western European woodlands, to be more specific, in England.
3. This dinosaur lived in the middle Cretaceous Period which was some 110 to 100 million years ago.
4. The characteristic features of this dinosaur included pointed beak and oval and thick armor.
5. Since Acanthopholis was an herbivore, it is quite natural for us to think that this dinosaur could have been an easy snack for carnivores that lived during the Middle Cretaceous period. Wrong! Not only was the thick oval armor a formidable defense for this herbivore dinosaur, it also had lethal-looking spines sprouting out from its tail, shoulders and neck along the spine, which prevented the carnivores of that era from targeting the Acanthopholis as a quick meal.
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Facts about Acanthopholis: 6-10
6. The oval armor of the dinosaur looked very much like the present-day turtle shell.
7. Interestingly, Acanthopholis was not really discovered by a scientist. John Griffiths, who was actually a commercial fossil collector was the first person to dig up the remains up this dinosaur in year 1865.
8. The remains of Acanthopholis were then sold by Griffiths to Dr. John Percy who was a metallurgist. It was Percy who called Thomas Henry Huxley to see the remains. Huxley then paid Griffiths to dig up the remaining fossils from the site. The site was actually a shoreline located near Kent’s Folkestone.
9. The armor of Acanthopholis had keeled oval plates set horizontally on its skin.
10. The Acanthopholis was quadrupedal by nature and grew up to 18 feet in length. The weight of this species of dinosaur could reach 840 pounds.
Acanthopholis wasn’t really a pretty species out there back in those days. It could have easily scared the hell out of us just by its looks. Think what happens when an 800 pound dinosaur lovingly rolls on us! Will you like to get this one as a pet? Luckily that’s possible only in dreams!