Paleontologists in Alberta have described a fiercely intimidating Cretaceous Period dinosaur that featured a distinct set of facial horn and acantha at the back of its skull .
The new ceratopsid ( horned ) dinosaur was described by paleontologists Caleb Brown and Donald Henderson of the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology in Alberta . The details of their subject field , which was based on an psychoanalysis of nearly complete skull , can now be retrieve at the scientific discipline journalCurrent Biology .
Hellboy ’s official name is Regaliceratops peterhewsi , the first part of which mean “ royal horned face ” and the latter part named in honor of its discoverer , Peter Hews . As Reutersreports , it was nicknamed “ Hellboy ” because “ its stubby horns above the eye resemble the mirthful - Scripture character of the same name and because of the diabolic prison term they had in fastidiously extricate it from what [ the paleontologist ] call ‘ malefic hard rock candy . ’ ”
The skull was discovered back in 2005 in southwestern Alberta when Hews comment the peak of the rostrum jutting out of a drop-off . The fossil make out to hold its integrity over the millennia , let Brown and Henderson to analyze it in three dimension . The residual of Hellboy ’s skeleton was never come up .
Regaliceratops was a herbivore that lived at the very shadow - end of the dinosaur epoch some 65 to 100 million years ago . Roughly the sizing of a forward-looking rhinoceros , it measure out 16 feet ( 5 measure ) long , 5 feet ( 1.5 meters ) grandiloquent at the articulatio coxae , and count in at an telling 1.5 tons ( 3,000 pounds or 1,360 kg ) .
Here ’s how Will Dunham name the alone skull in his Reuters report :
It possessed a large conical saddle horn over its nose and a brace of modest , forward - curve horns over its eyes that were puny compare to its self-aggrandizing close relative , Triceratops . Seven bony spines in triangular and pentagonal embodiment formed a annulus around the edge of its bombastic cuticle - similar frill .
The discovery of Regaliceratops is also interesting in that it suggests evolutionary convergence in the physical display of horned dinosaur .
“ This marks the first time that evolutionary convergence in cornet - like display social structure has been demonstrated between dinosaur clades , alike to those seen in fossil and extant mammalian , ” note the authors in their study .
An clause from NPRexplainsfurther :
harmonise to paleontologists , the “ tusk dinosaur ” fall into two categories — Chasmosaurines , with a diminished horn above the nose and with child horn over the eyes , and Centrosaurines , with a large horn over nose and pocket-size “ eye horns . ”
Unlike Triceratops , “ Hellboy ” has almost “ comically modest ” eye horns . Along with the new dinosaur ’s large shield - like ruff , “ the combined result attend like a crown , ” Brown says .
“ This new species is a Chasmosaurine , but it has decoration more similar to Centrosaurines , ” he says . “ It also come in from a time period come the extinction of the Centrosaurines . ”
mean that the two groups develop the same lineament independently .
harmonize to Caleb , most of the horns were actually quite useless and were probably ornamental .
remark : This clause was update to let in the NPR reference .
Read the intact subject field at Current Biology : “ A New Horned Dinosaur Reveals Convergent Evolution in Cranial Ornamentation in Ceratopsidae ” .
[ Reuters|NPR ]
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