Wendiceratops dinosaur had "extravagant" halo of horns
Source: CBS News
ByMICHAEL CASEY CBS NEWSJuly 8, 2015, 5:36 PM
Wendiceratops dinosaur had "extravagant" halo of horns
Scientists have discovered one of the oldest horned dinosaurs, a one-ton behemoth that had spikes above its eyes, on its nose and covering almost its entire neck.
The new dinosaur, named Wendiceratops pinhornensis, is described from over 200 bones representing the remains of four specimens from the group of large-bodied dinosaurs known as the Ceratopsidea. It lived about 79 million years ago, making it 13 million years older than its famous cousin Triceratops and one of the few specimens of this group from the late Campanian period, stretching from 90 million to 77 million years ago, found in North America.
It was found at a site in southern Alberta five years ago by Wendy Sloboda, a famous fossil hunter who has made hundreds of discoveries over the past three decades.
"She came across the site in 2010 and it actually had parts of the skull weathering out on the surface," said Royal Ontario Museum's David Evans, who co-authored a study on the find in PLOS One with the Cleveland Museum of Natural History's Michael Ryan. Sloboda was part of the research team.
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