This is Dacentrurus, believed to be the newly described dinosaur’s closest relative. Image: Jaime A. Headden via Wikimedia Commons.
The Natural History Museum in London has a post about a newly described Stegosaur. This animal lived about 168 million years ago, during the middle Jurassic, in what is now the Middle Atlas mountains of Morocco. It's the first stegosaur found in North Africa and is called Adratiklit boulahfa. The paper describing it appeared in the journal Science Direct.
All that is left of the animal is a handful of vertebrae and an upper arm bone, but those were enough for a team a palaeontologists to confidently identify not only a new species but a new genus.
The study was led by Dr Susannah Maidment, a Museum dinosaur expert, in collaboration with colleagues from Morocco.
Susie says, 'The discovery of A. boulahfa is particularly exciting as we have dated it to the Middle Jurassic.
'Most known stegosaurs date from later in the Jurassic Period, making this the oldest definite stegosaur described and helping to increase our understanding of the evolution of this group of dinosaurs.'
It is named Adratiklit boulahfa from the Berber words for mountain (Adras) and lizard (tiklit). The species name, boulahfa, refers to where the specimen was found.
