Large armored dinosaurs discovered.

Paleontologists in Utah have discovered two new species of large ankylosaurs--elephant-size dinosaurs covered with so much protective bone that they looked like walking castles. The as-yet-unnamed animals come from a quarry near Price, Utah, where researchers are uncovering many new dinosaur species.

"This new site probably contains tens of thousands of bones," says paleontologist James I. Kirkland, who announced the discovery last month. Kirkland is a research associate of the College of Eastern Utah's Prehistoric Museum in Price, which led the excavations that uncovered the fossils.

Ankylosaurs were four-legged plant eaters with rows of bony plates covering their backs and skulls. One family, the ankylosaurids, had a large club at the end of their tails, used presumably for protection. Another family, the no-dosaurids, lacked the tail club, but some species had large horny spikes projecting from their necks.

The Utah site yielded a new ankylosaurid and a new nodosaurid that lived more than 100 million years ago. The ankylosaurid resembles an Asian dinosaur of a similar time, suggesting that the two continents were connected then, says Kirkland. Scientists had previously thought that the continental bridge opened up several million years later.

However, Kenneth Carpenter of the Denver Museum of Natural History, who is also studying the new dinosaurs, contends that the resemblances appear to be superficial.