Headless Dino Skeleton Puzzles Palaeontologists

Left: the dinosaur found may have looked like this.




© Philip Eglise.

The fossilized skeleton of a dinosaur has been found in Kent. The dinosaur is a type of armoured dinosaur and might be a Nodosaurus, though could possibly be a species that hasn't been found before.

Often when dinosaur skeletons are found, they are damaged or lots of bones are missing, but not this time. It's minus a head, but the rest is all there.

Dr Ed Jarzembowski, from Maidstone Museum, spoke to us about the skeleton. He said: "The head of the carcass is always the first thing that drops off, so somewhere out there is a head. If anyone finds it I'd like them to get in touch!"

Right: meet this model of a Polacanthus at Dinosaur Isle on the Isle of Wight.







© Dinosaur Isle.

The dinosaur was about four metres long and would have had heavy armour plates on its body and a small, narrow head. It was a herbivore - a plant eater.

Back in the Cretaceous period, when the dinosaur was alive, the area of Kent where the bones were found would have been under the sea.

Several other dinosaurs have been discovered there before, which has set Dr Jarzembowski thinking:
"... these dinosaurs are almost always found in what would have been the sea.... Were they like lemmings throwing themselves over the cliff, or did they feed on seaweed?"

Left: if you can't make it to a museum to visit some dinosaurs, click on this link to hear T-Rex roar!


© Natural History Museum.

The bones have been carefully lifted out of the ground and will go on show at Maidstone Museum from May 3 2003.

If you can't get to Kent to see the Nodosaurus, Dinosaur Isle on the Isle of Wight has a dinosaur from the same family, a Polacanthus, along with a whole host of others, both fossils and models.

There is a Nodosaurus, also headless, at The Natural History Museum in London as well as the scary T-Rex in the picture above.

Try not to trip over any stray dinosaur heads when you're out and about!