Covered by dermal bands of keratinized or proteineous scutes, E. acutosquameus was a thick-skinned, herbivorous dinosaur that lived during the late Cretaceous (85-65 million years ago). Low-slung and heavy-set, it could reach a length of up to 7m and a width of nearly 2m. Its tail ended in a fused club of bone, and heavy musculature allowed E. acutosquameus to swing the mass, presumably in defence. The skull was thick and horned, with a beaked mouth and herbivory-adapted teeth recessed further within the jaw. The load caused by the armour required structural compensation by the skeleton, and this can be seen in the fusion of rib and hip elements with dorsal vertebrae.

E. acutosquameus is an excellent example of the morphological diversity that accumulated within dinosaurian lineages, even as their extinction loomed.

Parks, WA. (1924). Dyoplosaurus acutosquameus, a new genus and species of armoured dinosaur; and notes on a skeleton of Prosaurolophus maximus. University of Toronto Studies, Geological Series 18, pp. 1-35

Vickaryous, MK; and Russell, AP. (2003). A redescription of the skull of Euoplocephalus tutus (Archosauria: Ornithischia): a foundation for comparative and systematic studies of ankylosaurian dinosaurs. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 137 (1) , pp. 157–186.

Carpenter, K. (2001). The Armored Dinosaurs. Indiana University Press.

Carpenter, K. (1982). Skeletal and dermal armor reconstruction of Euoplocephalus tutus (Ornithischia: Ankylosauridae) from the Late Cretaceous Oldman Formation of Alberta. Can. J. Earth Sci. Vol. 19(4), pp. 689–697.