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Martial arts are closely related to a philosophy and way of life, but also with hand-to-hand and close-quarters combat survival; in some cases, this includes the use of weapons, some of them exotic, and in others, just the use of the body. But regarding personal defence, we humans have only gotten as far as developing techniques using the same basic tool: our body, Instead, some animals, over very long periods of time have evolved full-scale body armour and even defensive weaponry by means of mutations and genetic evolution, turning them into a paradigm of self -defence.

Edentates, also known as 'Xenarthra' are a group of animals that appeared shortly after dinosaurs became extinct in the famous K-T event. The period immediately posterior, in which the edentates began to evolve, the Palaeocene, went since 66,4 million years ago to 55,8. 'Xenarthra' means 'strange movements' or 'strange articulations,' meaning that these animals have odd, additional joints mainly in their backbones.

This group of animals includes sloths, armadillos and ant eaters. They are also known as edentates because evolution left them with nominal teeth only. The armadillos ('Dasypodidade' family) appeared during the Oligocene period (38,6 to 23,7 million years ago) And the Miocene (23,7 - 5,3): they are quite characteristic because of their body armour resembling the carapace of tortoises and turtles, and which covers almost entirely their bodies. The most curious armadillos were undoubtedly the glyptodonts, which reached the dimensions of small cars during the Pliocene (5,3 - 1,6) and Pleistocene (1,6 million years to almost present time) periods.

These animals weighted nearly two tonnes and their armour represents about 25% of their total body weight. In addition to their armour, they had spiked clubs in their tails, which were used as defensive weapons against predators such as certain marsupials and felines which are collectively known as saber tooths.

The marsupials and felines which had these huge canine teeth were, however, not related and this constitutes a typical case of genetic convergence in which two completely different species evolve into something similar. But glyptodonts are also a case of convergence, in this case, with the unrelated ankilosaurids, one of the last group of dinosaurs that evolved before the disastrous event that wiped them out almost to the last (birds are dinosaurs): they too had spiked clubs in their tails, in some cases, as well as an array of armour plates over their bodies.

Mammals and dinosaurs can only trace common ancestors to the late Permian period (286 - 245 million years ago), and these cases show us how nature finds the way thorough similar solutions for similar problems. It is indeed hard to imagine the striking power of an irritated glyptodont's counter - attack, with such a mass and defensive array.

Good fossil examples of these already-extinct species can be found at the Museum of Natural Sciences of La Plata University, in the homonymous city, in Argentina, as well as the Bernardino Rivadavia Natural History Museum, in Buenos Aires. These museums are among the finest in the world dedicated to palaeontology, so visit them if you are in the area.

So much for our Karate kicks...

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