by Playfuls Staff |
4th March 2007
A scientist at The Cleveland Museum of Natural History has
announced the discovery of a new horned dinosaur, named Albertaceratops nesmoi,
approximately 20 feet long and weighing nearly one half ton. The newly identified plant-eating dinosaur lived
nearly 78 [more] million years ago during the Late Cretaceous Period in what is now
southernmost Alberta, Canada. Its
identification marks the discovery of a new genus and species and sheds
exciting new light on the evolutionary history of the Ceratopsidae dinosaur
family. Only one other horned dinosaur has been discovered in Canada since
the 1950s. Michael J. Ryan, Ph.D., Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology
at the Museum reports his findings on the new genus and species in the latest
volume of the Journal of Paleontology.
Albertaceratops nesmoi belongs to the Centrosaurinae, one of
two subfamilies of the horned dinosaur family Ceratopsidae. Typically members
of this subfamily have very short horns over their eyes, a long horn over their
nose and either spikes or hooks coming off of the frill that projects from the
back of their skulls.
What makes this dinosaur unique is that it is the first
centrosaur with long brow horns typically found in the other subfamily,
Chasmosaurine, which includes Triceratops and Torosaurus. In addition,
Albertaceratops nesmoi lived more than 10 million years earlier than
Triceratops.
“My research team was stunned when we uncovered the skull
and saw these long brow horns attached to a centrosaurine frill,” said Ryan, a
Canadian who was working on his Ph.D. through the University of Calgary
when the specimen was found.
“We knew that we had something special that we had never
seen before—it meant that while Triceratops had giant horns, some centrosaurs
did, too,” he added.
In addition to having long brow horns, Albertaceratops
nesmoi has a long, low banana-shaped bump in place of a nasal horn. There also
are two large, thick hooks that curl forward from the corners of the creature’s
frill. The long horns could have been used for either sexual display or
self-defense against the giant predatory tyrannosaur, Daspletosaurus that
roamed the region.
“Analysis shows that Albertaceratops nesmoi was the most
primitive member of the Centrosaurinae, and that it is placed just above the
split that separated them from the group that includes Triceratops,” Ryan
added. “It is very surprising that a Centrosaur would have long brow horns,”
said Don Brinkman, Ph.D., Head of Research and Curator of Vertebrate
Paleontology at the Royal Tyrrell Museum
in Drumheller, Alberta, where the specimen is currently
housed.
Albertaceratops nesmoi is named to honor both the province
where the new dinosaur was found and Cecil Nesmo, a local rancher living near Manyberries, Alberta,
who has long supported the study of palaeontology and other research in the
area. Ryan had spent four hot summers looking for long-horned centrosaurs in
southern Alberta
after being shown similar fossils owned by Canada Fossils. Ltd., Calgary, which had been collected from just across the
border in Montana.
“The most southern part of Alberta
has a tremendous potential for discovering new dinosaurs, but it has been
almost ignored in the past because of its remoteness,” said David Evans,
incumbent Associate Curator of Dinosaurs at the Royal
Ontario Museum
in Toronto. For
this reason, Ryan and Evans established the Southern Alberta Dinosaur Research
Group (SADRG) (www.dinoresearch.ca) in 2005 along with colleagues from the Royal Tyrrell
Museum, The University of Alberta and
the University of
Calgary.
According to Ryan, the support of local ranchers and
families living along Alberta’s
southern border is key to conducting scientific research in the area. “In
addition to facilitating the exchange of scientific information and educating
students, the SADRG helps researchers coordinate their work with each other,
government agencies and the local residents so that everyone’s concerns are
met,” said Ryan.
Ryan and the SADRG have their next three field seasons
mapped out, and are close to announcing at least one more new, strange-horned
dinosaur.
Source: Cleveland Museum
of Natural History
