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A new University of Michigan study of dinosaur fossils from India has revealed that the sauropod dinosaur Kotasaurus yamanpalliensis wielded a bony tail club.

The research was based on the discovery of four ellipsoidal skeletal elements collected from the Kota Formation of the Pranhita-Godavari Valley of southcentral India, offering insights into these extinct giants.

The team compared these Kotasaurus tail clubs, estimated to be 175 million years old and housed in Hyderabad's Geological Survey of India (Southern Region) offices, to structures found in similar-aged sauropods from China, Shunosaurus lii and Omeisaurus tianfuensis.

Notably, the complete tail of Shunosaurus allows for detailed morphological comparisons that shed light on the evolutionary trajectory of tail clubs among early sauropods. The study is published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

"Our analysis indicates that the tail clubs may consist of up to three individual vertebral elements that fuse together as the dinosaur matures," said lead author Tariq Abdul Kareem, U-M graduate student in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences.

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