Researchers in England place Vectipelta barretti in the Early Cretaceous.

A spiny dinosaur once stalked the Mediterranean climate of what is now the Isle of Wight. For the first time in more than 140 years, an ankylosaurid has been described as a new species of armored dinosaur from an island off the south coast of Great Britain. Vectipelta barettii is from the Early Cretaceous and differs from other ankylosaurs in the area, among other things, by differences in vertebrae and more blade-shaped vertebrae, the research team reports in the “Journal of Systematic Paleontology.”

Vectipelda is therefore most closely related to the Chinese ankylosaurs. According to a team led by Stuart Bond of the Natural History Museum in London, this indicates that dinosaurs were able to move freely from Asia to Europe during the Early Cretaceous period, about 140 million years ago. The researchers also explain that relatively few fossilized dinosaur remains are known from that period. So some experts believe that the animal mass extinction may have occurred in the Late Jurassic (about 150 million years ago).

Almost 142 years before the rededication, it attributed all of the Isle of Wight’s ankylosaurid remains to the dinosaur genus Polacanthus foxi. The findings of the last few decades must now be re-examined.

Vectipelta barretti gave its species name to Professor Paul Barrett, who worked for many years at the Natural History Museum. It said some of the study authors were mentored by him as young researchers. He is also the world authority on dinosaurs – no dinosaur has ever been named after him. “We wanted to thank him for his support and encouragement, so we decided to name the slow-moving, spiny creature after him.”

Barrett said he was delighted and delighted by the recognition. Not least because his first work was about armored dinosaurs. “I firmly believe that any physical resemblance (to the species Vectipelda barretti just described) is purely coincidental.”