One of the largest horned dinosaurs roaming the world 70 million years ago has been discovered in northwestern New Mexico, according to a study published Thursday.
Named ojoceratops fowleri, the creature was a precursor to two well-known horned dinosaurs, triceratops and torosaurus.
The fossilized remains, discovered in 2005 in the Bureau of Land Management's Bisti/De-na-zin Wilderness , included the frill, a large boney structure that curves up at the back of the head.
"Ojoceratops is a very distinctive beast," Dr. Robert M. Sullivan, vertebrate paleontologist, said in a news release from the New Mexico Museum of History and Science. "The frill is very different from Triceratops and Torosaurus, being squared off at the back unlike Triceratops, and lacking any openings in the frill, like in Torosaurus."
Sullivan, senior curator of paleontology and geology at the State Museum of Pennsylvania, led a series of expedition that recovered the fossilized bones. He and Dr. Spencer Lucas, curator of geology at the New Mexico museum, co-authored the study in the peer-reviewed book "The Horned Dinosaurs" published Thursday by Indiana University Press.
Field assistant Denver Fowler, who is now a Ph.D. student at Montana State University, made the actual discovery in the Ojo Alamo Formation, a rock layer older than some dinosaur-bearing formations in the West, Lucas said.
"Although bits and pieces of horned dinosaurs have been known from this rock formation for many years, the frill bone is incredibly important for finally figuring out what this animal looked like," Andy Farke, a ceratopsian expert, said. "In combination with other specimens, we have a much better idea of what New Mexico was like at the close of the age of dinosaurs."
Ojoceratops is described as one of the last surviving ceratopsid dinosaurs and is dated to 69 million years ago. Ceratopsids, herbivores known for their head frills and facial horns, lived in both Asia and North America 65-95 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous Period .
Source: KRQE