Today we adore: Stegosaurus!

I think it's impossible not to adore the Stegosaurus. They're one of the most iconic by far, and one of the weirdest looking dinosaurs out there.

One of my favorite things about these guys is the staggering amount of amazing art featuring these spiky balloons. Since we have no idea what color really any dinosaur is (besides some feathered ones which I'll talk about later), this leaves artists to use their wildest imaginations.
Any artist without limits is the best kind, in my opinion; free to express themselves using these animals as their muses. I've seen a range from very mild to loud and ridiculous.
And I absolutely love it.

To be honest, what made me want to write about stegosaurus is because of the amazing art I was finding on them, which made me start to read up on them more. I didn't realize how many Stegosauride there were out there, and just how insane some of these guys looked. 

It seems like most of these breeds borderline on being more ankalosaurs with their designs, but lacking the tank-level plating. A lot of them are just covered in spikes.

I don't know if you can see it in the picture, but Huayangosaurus has spikes coming out of his shoulders like a sadistic football player. 

Stegosaurus are like the Mad Maxes of the dinosaur word. A weird, clunky machine with weird sharp shit attached all over.
Someone needs to draw them screaming the War Boy's cry.
MAKE IT HAPPEN.

Here's some 101 on Stegosaurs: 

They lived during the late Jurassic, which is about 150~155 million years go. The main predator during that time would have been the Allosaurus (one of my favorites).

According to the type of teeth that they had, steggies had cheeks, which I think is adorable. They had blood vessels in their plates which means it might have flushed with color for display, either for intimidation or for mating. Or...both, I would assume?

Though probably very beautiful, and extremely deadly, they did unfortunately have a very itty-bitty brain.
So, they're deadly, gorgeous, fully armored, idiots.

And that, my friends, is quite the combo.

These guys were discovered back in the 1800s, part of the original Bone Wars which if you don't know about is freaking crazy. Think of the founders of what we know about paleontology having a pissing contest about who could find the most dinosaurs between two very prestigious universities. It was awesome and terrible all at the same time.

Anyhoo, the best skeleton wasn't discovered until 1995, which is crazy it took so long to find one in better shape.

Since I'm a Far Side fan, the fact that the spikes at the end of the their tails are called "thagomizers" is the best thing ever.
They are really called that. Like, in science books.

I was interested in finding out more about the "second brain" thing I had heard a long time ago on whether or not it was actually true. What I had heard, is that steggies have another bundle of nerves in their hips or tails that acted as a "rump brain" for the animal, especially since they were just dummies. 

Basically what the theory was, is that this butt brain would have helped the animal control the massive deadly tail that was its main form of defense. It makes sense if you think about how small Stegosaurus's brain was compared to its size.

That has in fact be debunked, according to Smithsonian.com, by a woman named Emily Buchholtz, who is a dinosaur brain expert. Yeah, that's a thing! She has a book that I'm not obsessing over called The Complete Dinosaur, that I absolutely must own one day. I also want to read everything I can about the most current research on dinosaur brains, because I did not realize that was a field of study and I'm quite excited!

I love Stegosaurs. I love them. I don't think I can have a favorite, but damn these guys come close. I love their plates, awesome tails and how they strike a cord with paleo artists. I wish I could post all the art I found, but I'll leave you with my favorite and current desktop wallpaper.