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New Spiky-Headed Armored Dinosaur Discovered in Utah Was Basically a Tank

posted by mrpg on Sunday July 29 2018, @02:06PM   
from the beauty-is-in-the-eye-of-the-tiger dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

A new species of spiky-headed dinosaurs has been discovered in Utah, the oldest of its genus ever found in North America. Akainacephalus johnsoni is 75 million years and like its cousin, the Ankylosaurus, had an armored body and an imposing club tail.

The dinosaur's scientific journey began 10 years ago in 2008, when a paleontologist with the Bureau of Land Management found what appeared to be a fossil site at the Kaiparowits Formation of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. A hotbed of prehistoric discovery, the Kaiparowits has been called "dinosaur Shangri La." The National Momument was recently shrunk through an order from President Trump, and some of its former land has now been purchased by a mining company.

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Original Submission

• Re:"Basically a Tank" Re:"Basically a Tank" (Score: 3, Informative) by tibman on Sunday July 29 2018, @11:41PM (2 children)

  by tibman (134) on Sunday July 29 2018, @11:41PM (#714505)

  For a gamer the word "tank" refers to it's ability to absorb or repel damage. "That guy is so tanky." "The tank should go in first and take agro."

  I don't think anyone thinks the dino was literally an armored fossil fueled vehicle.

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• Re:"Basically a Tank" (Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday July 30 2018, @12:22AM

  by c0lo (156) on Monday July 30 2018, @12:22AM (#714531) Journal

  was literally an armored fossil fueled vehicle

  Pedantic, I know, but except for the 'vehicle' part, it literally shows the traits: it was armored and it eat what today is considered fossils.

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• Re:"Basically a Tank" (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday July 30 2018, @02:16AM

  by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Monday July 30 2018, @02:16AM (#714571) Journal

  Thanks for that. I'm not a gamer, so this is a meaning I'm unfamiliar with. I still think the headline was going for the armored vehicle metaphor given the reference to armor in the opening... But sure, I'll hope they were making a gamer reference.

  (Also, I'm familiar with the more broad non-gamer simile, i.e., "built like a tank." But that's a very different phrase from saying something is "basically a tank.")

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