Post by dinosauria101 on Mar 1, 2019 18:27:52 GMT 5
Eotriceratops xerinsularis
Fossil range: Cretaceous, about 70 - 68 million years ago
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Sauropsida
Superorder: Dinosauria
Order: Ornithischia
Suborder: Cerapoda
(Unranked): Marginocephalia
Infraorder: Ceratopsia
Family: Ceratopsidae
Subfamily: Ceratopsinae
Genus: Eotriceratops
Pronounced as: ee-oh-try-SAIR-ah-tops zeer-in-soo-LAIR-iss
The name means: "Dawn Three-horned face from Dry Island"
Its skull is said to have been around three metres long. This would put its full size estimates to 12 meters, though a more conservative estimate places the length of Eotriceratops at 9 meters (30 ft).
It is a probable ancestor of the well known Triceratops.
Partially preserved fossil skull:
Video footage of discovery
EDMONTON - Scientists at the Royal Tyrrell Museum have unearthed an ancestor of the Triceratops, a dinosaur with a skull the size of a Smart Car.
The newly discovered genus of horned dinosaur, which has been given the name Eotriceratops xerinsularis, was recently put on display at the Drumheller museum after being painstakingly assembled over the past five years.
Dave Eberth, a senior research scientist at the Tyrrell, said the specimen was found in 2001 by the camp cook on a dig in the Horseshoe Canyon formation at Dry Island Buffalo Jump, about 70 kilometres northwest of Drumheller.
Parts of the three-metre-long skull and skeleton were found in a 20-metre-thick geological layer that usually doesn't yield dinosaur bones in Alberta, Eberth said.
The Triceratops is thought to be 66 million years old, but this specimen goes back 68 million years, which makes it an early version of the three-horned dinosaur.
It was an unlikely find, Eberth said. Only about one-third of the skeleton was found, and the skull was in 40 to 50 pieces embedded in shale.
"When you go out and look for dinosaur material, you find a lot that's not up to snuff: bits and pieces of broken bone and that kind of thing.
"Usually, you walk on by and look for something better," he said. "Basically, it's a road kill. It looks like somebody ran over it in a Cretaceous Hummer."
But this specimen was from a layer that had never yielded dinosaur bones in Alberta, only marine fossils.
"Geologically, we understand the layers. And we said, 'Wow we have a specimen in this horizon that doesn't usually produce anything.'
"Otherwise we would have walked on by this specimen. We put a lot of effort into it and it took us about a month to get it out of the field."
While they didn't find the entire animal, they got the most important part around the skull.
It looked like Triceratops, but when they studied it they found it to be a more primitive version. They called it Eotriceratops, early three-horned animal.
"It's basically an ancestor of Triceratops and there's nothing like it in the world, so it's a new dinosaur."
The discovery has been reported in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences.
Sources:
Gigantic heads run in this family.
Dino's got head the size of Car.
Read more: article.pubs.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/ppv/RPViewDoc?issn=1480-3313&volume=44&issue=9&startPage=1243 (PDF file)
Fossil range: Cretaceous, about 70 - 68 million years ago
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Sauropsida
Superorder: Dinosauria
Order: Ornithischia
Suborder: Cerapoda
(Unranked): Marginocephalia
Infraorder: Ceratopsia
Family: Ceratopsidae
Subfamily: Ceratopsinae
Genus: Eotriceratops
Pronounced as: ee-oh-try-SAIR-ah-tops zeer-in-soo-LAIR-iss
The name means: "Dawn Three-horned face from Dry Island"
Its skull is said to have been around three metres long. This would put its full size estimates to 12 meters, though a more conservative estimate places the length of Eotriceratops at 9 meters (30 ft).
It is a probable ancestor of the well known Triceratops.
Partially preserved fossil skull:
Video footage of discovery
EDMONTON - Scientists at the Royal Tyrrell Museum have unearthed an ancestor of the Triceratops, a dinosaur with a skull the size of a Smart Car.
The newly discovered genus of horned dinosaur, which has been given the name Eotriceratops xerinsularis, was recently put on display at the Drumheller museum after being painstakingly assembled over the past five years.
Dave Eberth, a senior research scientist at the Tyrrell, said the specimen was found in 2001 by the camp cook on a dig in the Horseshoe Canyon formation at Dry Island Buffalo Jump, about 70 kilometres northwest of Drumheller.
Parts of the three-metre-long skull and skeleton were found in a 20-metre-thick geological layer that usually doesn't yield dinosaur bones in Alberta, Eberth said.
The Triceratops is thought to be 66 million years old, but this specimen goes back 68 million years, which makes it an early version of the three-horned dinosaur.
It was an unlikely find, Eberth said. Only about one-third of the skeleton was found, and the skull was in 40 to 50 pieces embedded in shale.
"When you go out and look for dinosaur material, you find a lot that's not up to snuff: bits and pieces of broken bone and that kind of thing.
"Usually, you walk on by and look for something better," he said. "Basically, it's a road kill. It looks like somebody ran over it in a Cretaceous Hummer."
But this specimen was from a layer that had never yielded dinosaur bones in Alberta, only marine fossils.
"Geologically, we understand the layers. And we said, 'Wow we have a specimen in this horizon that doesn't usually produce anything.'
"Otherwise we would have walked on by this specimen. We put a lot of effort into it and it took us about a month to get it out of the field."
While they didn't find the entire animal, they got the most important part around the skull.
It looked like Triceratops, but when they studied it they found it to be a more primitive version. They called it Eotriceratops, early three-horned animal.
"It's basically an ancestor of Triceratops and there's nothing like it in the world, so it's a new dinosaur."
The discovery has been reported in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences.
Sources:
Gigantic heads run in this family.
Dino's got head the size of Car.
Read more: article.pubs.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/ppv/RPViewDoc?issn=1480-3313&volume=44&issue=9&startPage=1243 (PDF file)