Canada 4 Dollar Silver Coin 2010 Euoplocephalus tutus - Dinosaur
Series: The Dinosaurs Collection
Obverse: Susanna Blunt’s design of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
Reverse: A Euoplocephalus fossil with its distinctive armour-like appearance.
Euoplocephalus tutus is the latest addition to this series that sparked the imagination of dinosaur hunters everywhere when it was first introduced in 2007.
This large armadillo-like creature lived in Alberta between 76 and 70 million years ago. Its body was covered with bony armour embedded in its skin. Even its eyelids were covered with moving bony plates and its tail had a defensive club that was formed by four bony growths fused together. Although such extensive body armour might have given this dinosaur a fierce appearance, it was actually a slow, awkward-moving herbivore that fed on low-lying vegetation.
Mintage: 13000.
Composition: 99.99% pure silver.
Finish: proof (with selective aging effect on the reverse).
Weight: 15.87 g.
Diameter: 34 mm.
Edge: serrated.
Face value: 4 Canadian Dollars.
Artist: Kerri Burnett (reverse), Susanna Blunt (obverse).
Manufacturer: Royal Canadian Mint.
Highlights: A selective aging effect creates a powerful impression of fossilized bones in stone. In fact, this technique ensures no two coins are exactly alike. Each 99.99% pure silver coin is unique and—with a design that was developed in close collaboration with palaeontologists at Alberta’s Royal Tyrell Museum—is an original and compelling keepsake of one of humanity’s great fascinations.
Series: The Dinosaurs Collection
Canada 4 Dollar Silver Coin 2010 Euoplocephalus tutus - Dinosaur
Euoplocephalus
Euoplocephalus is one of the largest genera of herbivorous ankylosaurian dinosaurs, living during the Late Cretaceous of Canada. It has only one named species, Euoplocephalus tutus.
The first fossil of Euoplocephalus was found in 1897 in Alberta. In 1902, it was named Stereocephalus, but that name had already been given to an insect, so it was changed in 1910. Later, many more ankylosaurid remains were found from the Campanian of North America and often made separate genera. In 1971, Walter Coombs concluded that they all belonged to Euoplocephalus which then would be one of the best-known dinosaurs. Recently however, experts have come to the opposite conclusion, limiting the authentic finds of Euoplocephalus to about a dozen specimens. These include a number of almost complete skeletons, so much is nevertheless known about the build of the animal.
Euoplocephalus was about five to six meters long and weighed over two tons. Its body was low-slung and very flat and wide, standing on four sturdy legs. Its head had a short drooping snout with a horny beak to bite off plants that were digested in the large gut. Like other ankylosaurids, Euoplocephalus was largely covered by bony armor plates, among them rows of large high-ridged oval scutes. The neck was protected by two bone rings. It could also actively defend itself against predators like Gorgosaurus using a heavy club-like tail end.