Kentrosaurus is one of the coolest, dumbest, and most dangerous dinosaurs ever! Kentrosaurus lived in Tanzania in the Late Jurassic, and was a stegosaur, a group of ornithischians that were armored and covered in spikes or plates on their bodies. They are also famously known for having one of the smallest brain-to-mass ratios in the animal kingdom, even though their brains actually were larger than walnuts.
Kentrosaurus was a small stegosaurid, being 18 feet long and only around 4 feet tall. It weighed about 1.7 tons and would have been one of the smaller stegosaurids. It was thought to have been a basal member of the Stegosauria, but recent studies have placed it as a close relative of Stegosaurus. Kentrosaurus lived alongside dinosaurs like Giraffatitan (a close relative of Brachiosaurus and the tallest dino in the world), Barosaurus (a diplodocid), the ornithopod Dryosaurus, and possibly the carnivore Ceratosaurus.
Kentrosaurus had a row of small plates extending from its upper back. These turned to vertical spikes that gradually curved downwards and sideways on its lower back and tail. Kentrosaurus also had two spikes extending from its shoulders. Its tail, studded with spikes, was its main weapon for defending against predators. While Kentrosaurus itself was an herbivore, its tail whip was one of the most devastating things a theropod could dream of.
Kentrosaurus lived in the Late Jurassic, and it was one of the last stegosaurs. Its family rose in the Middle Jurassic, and they would be outlived by their close relatives the bone-plated ankylosaurs. The ankylosaurs used small chunks of bone called osteoderms and clubs instead of spikes on the tail as defense. In the nodosaurs, a specialized group of ankylosaurs, the spikes shifted from the back to the sides, extending horizontally. Apparently, this body plan was better than the stegosaurs’.
Anay Ganesh 