Sphere, 22 Sep 1934, p 418

A Canadian Armoured Monster

“Scolosaurus Cutleri”: This fossilized dinosaur, one of the finest specimens of its kind in the world, was found in Alberta and is now in the reptile section of the Natural History Museum, South Kensington.  It has never before been photographed adequately, but “The Sphere” has been able to obtain the pictures shown on this page with the help of the authorities who had the heavy glass panelling removed from the great showcase in which the monster is placed.

By Dr WE Swinton, FRSE (of the Reptile Section of the Natural History Museum, South Kensington)

The remains of this dinosaur were found, in 1914, by the late Mr. WE Cutler in the Upper Cretaceous sandstones half-way up a 400 ft high cliff bordering the Red Deer River in Dead Lodge Canyon, Alberta.  Mr. Cutler was working for the Trustees of the British Museum and this sandstone slab with its bony content arrived with other material in London in 1915. On account of the War its preparation was delayed until 1919 when Mr. LE Parsons, one of the preparators, returned to his more peaceful vocation.

The removal of the matrix, or stony covering, from the bones was completed on one side and it was decided to continue the process on the other side and so have the whole skeleton free.  During this second operation the preparator noticed a thin brown layer of sandstone with a more or less regular ornamentation, which proved after further investigation to be the imprint of the original skin.  The skin itself has long since perished, but here, faithfully reproduced, was its cast.  Plans were accordingly altered and this trace of the epidermis was slowly and very carefully followed until the whole of the back of the dinosaur was exposed.  Thus, as the dinosaur now mounted on its side for better display, there can be seen the whole of the armoured back and, on the other side, as much of the skeleton as could be developed.

The armour in the skin is particularly well developed and of great interest.  The neck is protected by transverse strips of bone separated by a short strip of flexible skin charged with bony granules.  Together these strips are shaped rather like a skull, and unfortunately, they were so identified by the collector.  Actually, the skull is missing, and probably remains on that canyon cliff separated from its exiled companion complement by “a waste of seas.”

Behind the neck plates is a considerable area of the flexible granular skin which is indented on each side where the arms meet the body.  Behind this there are four transverse strips of bone, each 10 in from back to front, and all separated by narrow belts of flexible skin.  Thus, the front part of the body was protected by these four belts of armour and the neck plates.  The hinder half is covered by a large plate of bone apparently formed by the fusion of three transverse and inflexible strips, with traces of polygonal scutes.  This buckler, or “lumbar shield” is a feature known in several other dinosaurs.  The tail was apparently covered by five alternating and polygonally marked segments separated by the usual thin strips of flexible skin.

Upon this segmented cuirass were placed spines, plates and bosses of bone arranged symmetrically.  There were two spikes on each side of the neck (as can be seen in the model), three longitudinal rows of somewhat flatter spikes on each side of the body, two rows on each side of the tail, and on the last segment but one of the tail, two enormous spikes. The spikes on the neck were about 6 in high, but all of them no doubt during the animal’s lifetime a horny covering which would make them even more impressive and much sharper. A whole battery of sharp spikes protected the upper arms.  Between the spikes are polygonal plates of bone, and elsewhere the skin is loaded with little ossicles.

Although the tail is thick and apparently unwieldy the only conceivable purpose of its tail-spikes is for offence or defence, and probably was used like a crusader’s mace. 

The front legs are shorter than the hind, and the animal walked with the elbows and knees stuck out from the body and the feet wide apart. It must, therefore, have resembled a large, broad, and low tortoise with a spiky shell and a long tail: a sort of animated tank armed against its great flesh-eating contemporaries.  The total length is 18 ft, the breadth 8 ft, and the estimated weight not less than 2 tons.

The late Baron Nopsca maintained that it was insectivorous, and he calculated that it probably ate 7,000 beetles and grasshoppers a week. Probably it slipped into the river and was drowned, the immense weight of its armour pulling it down and capsizing it.  Lodged on some sandbank the carcase decayed, and a plane leaf actually blew on to it and was preserved.  Eventually it became silted over and fossilized, to lie entombed for 75,000,000 years.