#glyptodont

[olessan]

Go, my potato

Baby glyptotherium | Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age

[252mya]

Glyptodont skull diversity is genuinely wild. Line ten of them up side by side and every single one looks different. These giant armored cousins of armadillos trundled across the Ice Age Americas, the biggest of them the size of a small car. This poster by Joschua Knüppe draws them like a classic natural history plate, with a human silhouette in the bottom row for scale. Printed on heavyweight luster paper with archival color. Available at https://fossi.ls/1ABDut.

[alphynix]

Panochthus tuberculatus was a large glyptodont – a group of giant heavily-armored armadillos – that lived in central and southern South America during the late Pleistocene, about 800,000-12,000 years ago.

Around 3.5m long (~11.5') and 1.5m tall (~5'), it was similar in size to a modern rhino (or a small car), and its large domed "shell" made up of numerous small bony osteoderms made it resemble a mammalian tortoise. Its skull was short and deep, with ever-growing grinding teeth and downwards-flaring cheekbones that anchored powerful jaw muscles. A preserved hyoid apparatus indicates that Panochthus also had a more flexible tongue than some other glyptodonts.

The base of its tail was segmented into rings that allowed it to flex, while the end of the tail was fused into a solid bony tube that was probably studded with large keratinous knobs or spikes.

While these sort of tail weapons in glyptodonts have been proposed as being anti-predator defenses, biomechanical studies suggest they required precise aiming to be most effective and weren't well-suited to fending off fast-moving attackers. Instead they may have been more specialized for fighting each other in ritualized forms of combat – an idea supported by injuries in fossil carapaces that appear to have been caused by blows from opponents' tail clubs.

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NixIllustration.com | Tumblr | Patreon

References:

Blanco, R. Ernesto, Washington W. Jones, and Andrés Rinderknecht. "The sweet spot of a biological hammer: the centre of percussion of glyptodont (Mammalia: Xenarthra) tail clubs" Proc. R. Soc. B. 276 (2009): 3971–3978. https://www.academia.edu/download/71293979/The_sweet_spot_of_a_biological_hammer_th20211004-20926-1xg5uwp.pdf

Luna, Carlos A., et al. "Memories of the blows: severe soft-tissue injuries in caudal vertebrae of Panochthus Burmeister (Xenarthra, Glyptodontidae)." Journal of Mammalian Evolution 31.3 (2024): 29. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10914-024-09729-0

Lima, F.C.G., Porpino, K. & Ribeiro, A.M. "Trauma-induced alterations in the exoskeleton of glyptodonts (Cingulata, Xenarthra) associated with fighting behavior." Journal of Mammalian Evolution 32, 9 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10914-025-09750-x

Wikipedia contributors. “Glyptodont” Wikipedia, 25 May 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyptodont

Wikipedia contributors. “Panochthus” Wikipedia, 02 Jun. 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panochthus

Zamorano, Martín, and Richard A. Fariña. "Changes in form and function of the caudal tubes in Panochthus (Xenarthra; Glyptodontidae) along the Pleistocene." Historical Biology 34.12 (2022): 2265-2272. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/357020158_Changes_in_form_and_function_of_the_caudal_tubes_in_Panochthus_Xenarthra_Glyptodontidae_along_the_Pleistocene

Zamorano, Martín, et al. "Hyoid apparatus of Panochthus sp. (Xenarthra; Glyptodontidae) from the Late Pleistocene of the Pampean Region (Argentina). Comparative description and muscle reconstruction." (2018). Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie - Abhandlungen 288.2 (2018): 205–219. https://ri.conicet.gov.ar/bitstream/handle/11336/97007/CONICET_Digital_Nro.bcac99f6-b327-435a-bca7-137dfd6af700_D.pdf?sequence=5

[whimsy-flags]

I hope you don't mind me continuing to throw extinct animals at you! How about a Glyptodon? They're like if armadillos were bigger and round.

Here you go!! I really hope you like - and don't worry, I am having a BLAST working on these creatures, hehe :3

[cretaceous-kid]

at least the guys look REAL good

[dinoesculturas]

DOEDICURUS CLAVICAUDATUS

COLA MORTERO CON CLAVOS

Doedicurus es un género extinto de mamíferos cingulados de la subfamilia Glyptodontinae que vivieron durante el Pleistoceno hasta bien entrado el Holoceno, encontrándose un fósil en Arroyo Seco, Argentina de hace 6555±160 años atrás

La maza al final de su cola era probablemente usada en combates intraespecíficos, más que para defenderse de depredadores tales como Smilodon, en contraste con la maza superficialmente similar de los dinosaurios anquilosáuridos, las cuales se considera que eran usadas para defenderse contra los dinosaurios carnívoros.

De hecho, el uso contra depredadores hubiera sido difícil debido a que el campo de visión del animal estaba tan limitado que habría tenido que esencialmente golpear a ciegas con su cola.

Adicionalmente, se ha encontrado caparazones con fracturas que fueron producidas por aproximadamente la misma cantidad de energía que sería producida por los músculos de la cola de Doedicurus, lo que refuerza la idea del uso instraespecífico.

HABITÓ: Sudamérica

HACE: 2 millones hasta hace 7.000 años

ES UN: Gliptodonte (mamífero)

MEDÍA:3,6 m de largo

PESABA: 1400Kg

COMIA: Herbívoro, plantas a altura baja

[visions-of-our-past]

Karen Carr

[taphonomenon]

Unspoken Rizz vs Sexual Harassment