Artistic reconstruction of a juvenile Haolong dongi from the Early Cretaceous of China (125 million years ago).
© Fabio Manucci.
Almost eight weeks into the New Year and not a single scientific paper has emerged in support of creationism—or its pseudo-scientific variant, Intelligent Design. Not even a speculative hint of the long-predicted collapse of ‘Darwinism’, nor any sign that Intelligent Design is making inroads into biomedical science. Instead, the steady flow of research continues to do precisely the opposite: quietly and methodically reinforcing evolutionary biology as the indispensable framework through which palaeontology, cell biology, virology and the rest of modern life sciences make coherent, testable sense of the evidence.
Today brings yet another example. An international team led by researchers from the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), working at the Université de Rennes, has identified a new species of iguanodontian dinosaur that lived in what is now China around 125 million years ago. Their paper, recently published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, reports that this species was probably covered in hollow spikes, somewhat reminiscent of porcupine quills. The team have named the new species Haolong dongi in honour of Dong Zhiming, a pioneer of Chinese palaeontology.
Using X-ray scans and high-resolution histological sections, the researchers were able to identify preserved skin structures, revealing hollow cutaneous spikes over much of the animal’s body. Although herbivorous, this dinosaur lived in an environment where predation pressure from small carnivores would have been significant, and the spikes likely provided a degree of protection comparable to that of modern porcupines. The structures may also have played roles in thermoregulation and/or sensory perception.
Iguanodontian Dinosaurs – Background Overview.The team’s findings are summarised in a press release from CNRS: Dinosaur spikes exhibiting unprecedented properties discovered in China.
What Are Iguanodontians?
Iguanodontians are a major clade of ornithopod dinosaurs within the order Ornithischia (“bird-hipped” dinosaurs). They flourished during the Late Jurassic and especially the Early Cretaceous (roughly 165–66 million years ago), before being largely replaced ecologically by hadrosaurs (duck-billed dinosaurs) in the Late Cretaceous.
They include familiar genera such as:
- Iguanodon
- Mantellisaurus
- Camptosaurus
- Dryosaurus
Key Anatomical Features
Iguanodontians are characterised by:
- Beaked jaws for cropping vegetation
- Leaf-shaped cheek teeth arranged in dental batteries (early stages of the sophisticated grinding systems later perfected by hadrosaurs)
- A stiffened tail for balance
- A large, often conical thumb spike in many species (particularly in derived forms like Iguanodon)
They were facultative bipeds: capable of walking on two legs but also able to move quadrupedally, especially larger species.
Size and Diversity
Body size varied widely:
- Small, lightly built forms such as Dryosaurus measured 2–4 metres in length.
- Larger forms like Iguanodon could exceed 9–10 metres and weigh several tonnes.
The group shows a clear evolutionary trend toward increasing body size, more complex dentition, and greater specialisation for high-efficiency herbivory.
Evolutionary Significance
Iguanodontians are evolutionarily important because they:
- Represent a transitional stage between small, agile Jurassic ornithopods and the highly specialised hadrosaurs of the Late Cretaceous.
- Demonstrate progressive refinement of plant-processing adaptations.
- Provide evidence of repeated experimentation with defensive structures (thumb spikes, body size increase, and in the newly described Chinese species, cutaneous spikes).
Their fossil record also illustrates how herbivorous dinosaurs responded to the rapid diversification of flowering plants during the Cretaceous.
Geographic Distribution
Iguanodontian fossils have been found across:
- Europe
- North America
- Asia
- Africa
- Australia
This broad distribution reflects the fragmentation of Pangaea and the diversification of regional faunas during the Jurassic–Cretaceous transition.
Ecological Role
As mid- to large-sized herbivores, iguanodontians occupied ecological niches comparable to those of modern large grazing and browsing mammals. They likely lived in herds, based on trackways and bonebeds attributed to some species.
In summary: Iguanodontians represent a highly successful, globally distributed radiation of herbivorous dinosaurs that bridged the evolutionary gap between early ornithopods and the later duck-billed dinosaurs. Their anatomy reveals a lineage in transition—experimenting with locomotion, dentition, and defensive strategies over tens of millions of years.
A dinosaur with spikes exhibiting unprecedented properties discovered in China
Documented for 200 years, the Iguanodontia group is expanding with the discovery of a brand-new species, the first known to bear spikes with properties never before observed in dinosaurs. Scientists from the CNRS1 and their international partners have uncovered in China the fossilised skin of an exceptionally well preserved juvenile iguanodon. Using X-ray scans and high-resolution histological sections, the researchers observed skin cells preserved for 125 million years, revealing the structure of hollow, cutaneous spikes covering a large part of the animal’s body. The scientists named this new species Haolong dongi in honor of Dong Zhiming, a pioneer of Chinese palaeontology.
This spiny dinosaur was herbivorous and lived under the predation pressure of small carnivorous dinosaurs. Comparable in their deterrent function to those of porcupines, its appendages represent a unique evolutionary innovation. They may also have played a role in thermoregulation or sensory perception.
Until now, no evidence had testified to the existence of such spines in dinosaurs. As the Haolong dongi specimen is juvenile, it remains to be determined whether these spines were also present in adults. This unprecedented discovery has been published in Nature Ecology & Evolution on February 6, 2026.
Artistic reconstruction of a juvenile Haolong dongi from the Early Cretaceous of China (125 million years ago).© Fabio Manucci.Publication:
Artistic reconstruction of a juvenile Haolong dongi from the Early Cretaceous of China (125 million years ago).© Fabio Manucci.
And so the pattern continues. While creationist organisations confidently predict the imminent collapse of evolutionary biology, working palaeontologists quietly expand our knowledge of life’s deep past, fossil by fossil, tissue by tissue. The discovery of Haolong dongi, with its remarkable hollow cutaneous spikes, does not overturn evolutionary theory; it exemplifies it. Defensive structures emerging under predation pressure, anatomical experimentation within a successful herbivorous lineage, and detailed reconstruction through modern imaging techniques—all fit comfortably within the evolutionary framework that biologists use every day.
Far from being a theory in crisis, evolution remains the unifying principle that allows disparate lines of evidence—from histology to biomechanics to biogeography—to cohere into a single, testable narrative. Each new fossil discovery refines that narrative, sometimes in surprising ways, but never in a way that requires abandoning the core principles of descent with modification and natural selection.
If Intelligent Design were truly a scientific research programme, we would expect it to generate comparable predictive successes and fossil discoveries. Instead, it contributes nothing to the actual work of science.
Meanwhile, evolution continues to do what it has always done: explain the evidence.
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