thagomizer
Sign in to saveAlso known as tail spike
thumb|Thagomizer on a mounted Stegosaurus tail A thagomizer () is the distinctive arrangement of spike-shaped osteoderms on the tails of some stegosaurian dinosaurs. These spikes are believed to have been a defensive measure against predators.
Wikidata facts
- Part of
- Stegosauridae
- Image
- Thagomizer on tail of Stegosaurus at AMNH in NYC.png
- Has use
- display
- Has parts of class
- spine
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- Commons category
- Thagomizers
- name
- thagomizer
Sources (1)
via Wikidata · CC0
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Encyclopedic overview
7 sectionsContents
- Etymology
- Paleobiology
- Other uses
- Mathematics
- Molecular biology
- See also
- References
thumb|Thagomizer on a mounted Stegosaurus tail A thagomizer () is the distinctive arrangement of spike-shaped osteoderms on the tails of some stegosaurian dinosaurs. These spikes are believed to have been a defensive measure against predators.
The arrangement of spikes originally had no distinct name. Cartoonist Gary Larson invented the name "thagomizer" in 1982 as a joke in his comic strip The Far Side, and it was gradually adopted as an informal term sometimes used within scientific circles, research, and education.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “thagomizer” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.