The following is largely my translation of an article called: 'Ein Tank der Vorwelt' von W. Gialf. It appeared in a German popular science magazine, Kosmos Handweiser für Naturfreunde 1923, Heft 1, Seiten 10-13. I'm not aware of any previous translation.
For some reason, the author uses a Germanised version of the generic name Palaeoscincus, a defunct term for an ankylosaur now usually known as Edmontia (Leidy's original name is treated as a nomen dubium.) Judging by the details mentioned this specimen may well be the one listed by the American Museum of Natural History catalogue as AMNH 5665, the front portion of E. rugosidens.
Trevor Dykes.

A tank of the prehistoric world by W. Gialf
If part of its skeleton were not standing over there in New York in the American Museum of Natural History, covered by enormous plates of armour, armed with monstrous spikes, then nobody would have held it for possible that it had ever lived, this tank of the prehistoric world, the Palaeoskinkus.

It was some 66 years ago that a certain Professor Leidy from Philadelphia described a very rare and unusually formed fossil tooth, which had been found by the geologist Ferdinand Hayden in central Montana in the northwest of the United States. The tooth compared with that of a skink, a still living lizard, so closely, that he christened the animal Palaeoskinkus, which means as much as 'the old extinct skink' (palaeo is Greek for old). These skinks live in southern areas of the Mediterranean, in the Sahara and around the Red Sea, in Arabia etc; but a few fellow genera can be met in Persia as well and Senegambia. It is even fairly common in Algiers and Tripoli. This skink is also a strange animal, then many of the natives still catch them in great quantities and make use of every part of the body as cures for sicknesses and illnesses; it is also a popular foodstuff there. These lizards lie motionless on the fine sands of the desert in the sun. Should an enemy approach then, with a lightning fast turn of the body, they will disappear into the sand. In reality, this skink has nothing to do with the dinosaur which strode around with its enormous size in Montana some seven, eight or nine million years ago for, as Leidy had already recognised, the tooth was much more like one of another dinosaur, the Iguanodon, than it is similar with that of a skink. With only the tooth alone, however, it was not possible to say anything more precise about the animal.

Light was thrown onto the subject in 1915, when the curator of fossil reptiles of the American museum received a marvellous collection of fossils from the Red Deer River of Alberta. As he compared this skeleton with others from Montana, described earlier, he noticed that one of those skeletons had teeth, and these were fully comparable with Leidy's description of Palaeoskinkus from half-a-century before. The spur to this realisation was given by Levy Sternberg, who was digging for dinosaurs with his father in Alberta, when he suddenly came across a skeleton obviously belonging to an armoured dinosaur, as the skeleton was partly covered with its armour apparently preserved in the correct position. The millions of years and the enormous pressure, which younger strata had exerted on the Mesozoic giant, may have pressed all the remains flat, with upper elements having been bent through the mighty legs pressed below the body, but, by and large, everything was relatively easy to recognise and separate, and it was possible to win this rare fossil for the museum. With unparalleled punctiliousness and patience, the remains were released from the mother stone during work lasting for 223 days; each single part, all of which were threatening to break and crumble beneath the fingers, was treated and strengthened with shellac and similar substances, and was then placed into its correct position. Finally, part of the front half of the animal with the head and a foot was reconstructed. Rightly, and regardless of how well justifiable, no fashioned replicas were used to enhance the original.

How did this giant look in reality? In order to ascertain this, it is always best when one, if possible, finds a comparable living animal. It turned out that not the skink, but three other extant reptiles have a measure of similarity in form and armour. These three lizards are the Horned lizard (Phyrnosoma cor(o)nutum Harl), which lives in the western states of America and Mexico and is also known as the horned toad or toad lizard; the general Girdled lizards (Zonuridae) which live in Africa; and finally the Australian Moloch lizard (Moloch horridus Gray), a truly terrifying looking animal. These three lizards are tiny dwarfs in comparison with our Palaeoskinkus but the weapons and armour display many similarities.

The Palaeoskinkus had a broad, short body which was supported by relatively trunk-like legs. There was a thick, heavy tail and a pointed, triangular skull at the front with thick armour. The back is armoured with mighty plates arranged in regular lines, and the flanks have violent spikes which thrust out threateningly to left and right. The armour of the back runs to the base of the tail and then gives over to armour rings, which go down towards the vulnerable tip of the tail, where they end as heavy, thick plates for protection. Consequently, the Palaeoskinkus has similarities with the toad lizard, which has spikes sticking out forwards and to the sides, the Girdled lizards, with their tail rings, and the Moloch, although that has neither the spikes nor some other details. But it is mightily different compared with these three lizards or any other extant reptiles. The lizards, crocodiles, tortoises and so on have small, weak legs relative to their heavy bodies, and they can mostly only carry the body for short distances, albeit often quickly; then they must rest and, generally, they need to lie flat along the whole body. The legs of Palaeoskinkus are very different despite being unusually short for a dinosaur, and of an uncommonly powerful form. The feet are wide and stumpy with short, flat toes. With these uncommonly powerful limbs Palaeoskinkus would have naturally accomplished a thoroughly different style of movement than any lizard of today, even if this indomitable giant obviously strode so slowly, that a tortoise would appear to be an animal in a comparative hurry.

Regarding the armour, it is still noticeable how strong the protective bone and plates are that cover the eyes, nostrils and at the chin, areas which were vulnerable to attacks on Palaeoskinkus. As it had a thick tail, this mighty organ and the skull could not be brought within the protection of its body armour as a tortoise can do, so it required the powerful protection that the tail could provide, enhanced, as it is, by the armour plates being set partly on top of one another in the manner of roof tiles. The legs had really terrifying protection in that spikes, which are more than thirty centimetres long, thrust out to the sides at the shoulders and hips, and they clearly remind us of the heavy armour worn during the times of knights as, especially at the vulnerable areas around joints and more pronouncedly at those joints themselves, there is especially impressive armour. The massive build, the powerful armour and weaponry, made this prehistoric tank as secure from meat-eating dinosaurs of its time as the steel plates protect tanks from people. The wide build ensured that the colossus could not be forced onto its back so, presumably, the underside required no particularly strong armour. If this giant were alive today, then it would have absolutely nothing to fear from the too puny weapons of even our greatest meat-eating predators.

To whom does the question not arise: Why did this huge wandering tank, this unassailable tank of the prehistoric age, not survive all beings and times? All kinds of explanations have been suggested, some serious, some more speculative but nevertheless thoughtful. Research into the mother stone and the formation, in which the remains were found, show that Palaeoskinkus lived in a large river delta area fed by numerous rivers streaming in from highlands. Its whole build and size demanded much nutritious food as grows in such lowlands as river mouths. The palms, figs and other tropical trees, remains of which have been found in the stone, show that such foods grew in quantity in this tropical climate. And that it enjoyed such fare is shown by the strong plates on the gums next to the few useless small teeth which, together, built its equipment for chewing. Some presume that the hey day of giant reptiles in the Mesozoic, the middle age of the Earth, was perhaps slowly followed by a cooler period, so that the great quantities of food required by Palaeoskinkus gradually began to fail; others are of the opinion that it suffered due to the cold temperature because, as a cold-blooded animal, it had little resistance to cooler conditions. But those are only assumptions, as is also the case for a more speculative suggestion by another researcher. He says that may be the small, opossum-like animals, which are found in the same formation, reproduced strongly, and took such a toll on the eggs of Palaeoskinkus, that new generations were increasingly endangered. But that brings us to another subsidiary question. What tells us then, that Palaeoskinkus laid eggs? While most reptiles do so, there are others which give birth to live young.

One could also assume, obviously without being able to evidence it, that even more powerful descendants of the Palaeoskinkus, such as Tyrannosaurus, posed a threat. It is possible that such mighty meat-eating dinosaurs, which are also found in the same strata, could have overpowered it had they attacked in unison. Finally, Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn has blamed the extinction of Palaeoskinkus on an illness transmitted by insects, similar to the various forms of infections that arise in animals, some of which, for example, can fully wipe out large game in Africa without this being known elsewhere. These are all only assumptions as the surrounding and contemporary world of the Palaeoskinkus is not understood in all of its details, the remains of the animal itself are too sparse -for instance, no trace of a young animal has yet been found- to allow firm conclusions to be drawn.

Be that as it may, when we look at the picture given by the form of this animal, and at the same time take into account the monstrous limbs and spikes, so an animal of fable awakes before our mind's eye which could hardly have been dreamed of. And as impressively well preserved as the remains of the reality are, it is nevertheless necessary to employ much fantasy and a large measure of imagination in order to reach beyond our accustomed modes of thought, so as to reach a belief in these strange beings from a time that finished millions of years ago. In Palaeoskinkus and the somewhat later Tyrannosaurus we see the strangest and most powerful animals from the age of the dinosaur, which reached its pinnacle of size and diversity during the Upper Cretaceous, and they played a terrifying role in the great theatre of the world, terrible for all that had to act alongside them on the earthly stage. And yet it was only a role. The unstoppable march of time and environmental change -and that must have been the main cause for their extinction- removed them again from that stage. The stage was then free for the mighty rise of the tribe of mammals, which opened during the mighty closing scenes of that earthly drama, and cast humanity into the central point of existence.

An index of more of my translations of old Kosmos articles can be found at:

Kosmos Translations Archive

A number of Mesozoic (and post-Mesozoic) location summaries can be found at Localities.