Scientists have announced the discovery of a new type of dinosaur that is similar to the celebrated Triceratops but features an even fancier headpiece.
Officially known as Mercuriceratops Gemini, the new species has three horns and a unique neck frill for extra protection, Live Science reported. The unusual dinosaur is based on specimens found in Montana and Alberta, Canada.
"The butterfly-shaped frill, or neck shield, of Mercuriceratops is unlike anything we have seen before," study co-author Dr. David Evans, curator of vertebrate palaeontology at the Royal Ontario Museum, said in a statement. "Mercuriceratops shows that evolution gave rise to much greater variation in horned dinosaur headgear than we had previously suspected."
Believed to have lived 77 million years ago in the Late Cretaceous Period, Mercuriceratops was a plant-eater like Triceratops and was about 20 feet long and more than 2 tons in weight. Its moniker combines "Mercury," the name of the Roman god that wore a winged helmet and "ceratops," while "Gemini" is the Latin word for "twins" and refers to the two specimens discovered.
The findings about the new species have been published in the online journal Naturwissenschaften. Even in a world ruled by dinosaurs, the unique frilled plant-eater would have been a standout, a researcher said.
"Mercuriceratops took a unique evolutionary path that shaped the large frill on the back of its skull into protruding wings like the decorative fins on classic 1950s cars. It definitively would have stood out from the herd during the Late Cretaceous," lead author Dr. Michael Ryan, curator of vertebrate paleontology at The Cleveland Museum of Natural History, said in a statement.
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