Tail clubs were a rare trait that didn’t survive past the Pleistocene, a period that ended about 11,700 years ago.
The last species to have them were glyptodonts – large dome-shaped armadillos from South America, and extinct turtle species from South America and Australasia. Before this, only two species of dinosaurs had tail clubs: the quadrupedal armored tanks known as ankylosaurs and the long-necked sauropods.
Of those approximately 250 sauropod species, only three were known to have tail clubs. Those three were from basal (or early forms of) sauropods from China. That number has now jumped to four, thanks to research published in September 2024.
A New Sauropod With a Tail Club
The newest tail club member, Kotasaurus yamanpalliensis that was also a basal sauropod, comes from the Jurassic of India, about 201.4 million years to 145 million years ago.
