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With their armor of triangular bumps or scutes, sturgeon don’t just look prehistoric.

These scales, also known as scutes, are quite tough.

He showed me where the sturgeon’s scutes—the sharp, bony plates on its back—had been forced into the body of the paddlefish.

Sturgeon date to the era of dinosaurs, and with their back ridges called scutes, still bear a resemblance to kids’ dinosaur toys.

And Borealopelta, named just this past year, is the most exquisite ankylosaur ever found – pointed scutes so delicately fossilized that experts were able to determine this trundling herbivore was colored a rosy red.