New Horned Dinosaur Discovered in Canada
A new type of horned dinosaur, a possible ancestor of the famous three-horned Triceratops has just gone on display at the Royal Tyrrell museum in Alberta.
Although Alberta, Canada is a real hotbed for new dinosaurs, especially Ceratopsians (horned dinosaurs), with many new genera being discovered in North America such as Albertaceratops, Kosmoceratops and Utahceratops, this new find is especially important has it comes from strata not normally associated with many well-preserved dinosaur fossils.
Horned dinosaurs were a group of reptiles belonging to the Ornithischian Sub-order of the Dinosauria (bird-hipped dinosaurs). They evolved in Asia and spread throughout the northern hemisphere during the Cretaceous. In the very last few million years of the reign of the dinosaurs, these animals evolved into gigantic forms - animals such as Styracosaurus, Torosaurus and perhaps the most famous horned dinosaur of all, Triceratops.
Discovered in a Remote Canyon
This specimen was found in a remote canyon in Dry Island Buffalo Jump Provincial Park in Central Alberta, in a rock horizon that represents sediments deposited around 68 million years ago (Late Cretaceous - Maastrichtian faunal stage). Very few dinosaurs are known from this particular period, so the find is potentially very important in helping to trace the lineage of other dinosaurs that came later such as the most famous horned dinosaur of them all - Triceratops.
According to David Eberth, a senior researcher at the Royal Tyrrell museum, it was lucky that the specimen was noticed as the joint expedition from the Tyrrell and Ottawa's Canadian Museum of Nature could easily have passed this very poorly preserved fossil by as it lay partially exposed in the canyon wall. However, as dinosaurs were rarely found in rocks of this age, the team persisted and their work was rewarded when they were able to recover most of the huge skull of this horned dinosaur.
Months of Excavation Work
It took the scientists a month to complete the initial excavation and then a further eighteen months of laboratory work before the skull was able to go on display. The work was well worth it as Eotriceratops (E. xerinsularis to give this animal its full name); represents a new genus of horned dinosaur, more primitive than Triceratops, with three horns, one small nose horn and two brow horns, each exceeding one metre in total length.
The skull is also very large, at approaching three metres in length. This is longer than any Triceratops skull found in Canada. The skull is the size of a Mini Cooper car.
The scale of this Ceratopsian is immense and a good impression of the overall size of the animal can be estimated when the skull is shown next to a technician who has been working on it - Eotriceratops xerinsularis was certainly a very large, herbivorous dinosaur.
Skull Found in Fifty Pieces
It is remarkable how well the skull material has been reconstructed, as when it was first extracted from the shale deposits where it was embedded it was in about 50 pieces. Indeed, one of the palaeontologists quipped that when it was first excavated the skull resembled "Cretaceous roadkill".
We still have a lot to learn about the evolution of the Ceratopsians. The greatest variety of horned dinosaurs seems to be found in North America, although they may well have evolved in Asia. Triceratops is often classified as the largest member of the "short-frilled Ceratopsians"; although it could hardly be described as typical of this group. Short-frilled Ceratopsians are characterised by long snout horns and relatively short neck frills. However, Triceratops has a short, brow horn and of course is famous for its long, solid bony frill. Perhaps this new discovery will help shed further light on the evolution of Triceratops. The name Eotriceratops means "dawn Triceratops".
Palaeontologists are hopeful that more fragments of the specimen will be found when they return to the canyon to explore the area more thoroughly.
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