Tail Spike
A thagomizer () is the distinctive arrangement of spike-shaped Osteoderm, osteoderms on the tails of some Stegosauria, stegosaurian dinosaurs. These spikes are believed to have been a defensive measure against predators. The arrangement of spikes originally had no distinct name. Cartoonist Gary Larson invented the name "thagomizer" in 1982 as a joke in his comic strip ''The Far Side'', and it was gradually adopted as an informal term sometimes used within scientific circles, research, and education. Etymology The term ''thagomizer'' was coined by Gary Larson in jest. In a 1982 ''The Far Side'' comic, a group of caveman, cavemen are taught by a caveman lecturer that the spikes on a stegosaur's tail were named "after the late Thag Simmons". The term was picked up initially by Kenneth Carpenter, then a paleontologist at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, who used the term when describing a fossil at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Annual Meeting in 1993. ''Thagomizer' ...
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