Albertaceratops: New plant-eating horned dinosaur discovered

March 5, 2007 Dinosaurs, News

Paleontologists in Alberta, Canada discovered a new plant-eating dinosaur with large horns they named Albertaceratops:

A sketch of the Albertaceratops skull. Courtesy Csotonyi.com. A new dinosaur species was a plant-eater with yard-long horns over its eyebrows, suggesting an evolutionary middle step between older dinosaurs with even larger horns and the small-horned creatures that followed, experts said.

The dinosaur’s horns, thick as a human arm, are like those of triceratops — which came 10 million years later. However, this animal belonged to a subfamily that usually had bony nubbins a few inches long above their eyes. […]

“Unquestionably, it’s an important find,” said Peter Dodson, a University of Pennsylvania paleontologist. “It was sort of the grandfather or great-uncle of the really diverse horned dinosaurs that came after it.”

Its always exciting when new dinosaurs are discovered — and this one is especially cool because it was essentially the grandfather of the Triceratops.

Besides the actual discovery, the best part of the story is the quote from the paleontologist who discovered the Zuniceratops, which preceded this new dinosaur:

“Lo and behold, evolutionary theory actually works,” he said.

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