Dacentrurus

dinosaurs · stegosaurs · armored reptiles · Jurassic

Spiky-backed dino. Dacentrurus belonged to the stegosaur family, dinosaurs famous for the rows of big plates and spikes running down their backs and tails. These armored herbivores used their spikes for defense against predators.

Found in England. Scientists discovered the first Dacentrurus skeleton in a clay pit in Swindon, England, buried in rocks that are about 150 million years old from the Late Jurassic period.

Renamed by scientists. When the dinosaur was first found in 1875, scientists named it Omosaurus armatus, but in 1902 they changed the name to Dacentrurus because someone had already used the name Omosaurus for a different prehistoric animal.

European wanderer. Unlike many famous dinosaurs found in North America, Dacentrurus lived in what is now Europe during the Late Jurassic and possibly the Early Cretaceous periods.

Partial puzzle. Scientists don't have many complete skeletons of Dacentrurus, which makes it harder to know exactly how big it was or all the details about how it lived compared to other stegosaurs.