New Dinosaur Species Found In Utah Totally Looks Like A Cow

Wednesday, July 17, 2013 - 11:30 in Paleontology & Archaeology

Nasutoceratops Lukas Panzarin Say hello to Nasutoceratops! Holy cow! Scientists have announced the discovery of a new species of dinosaur, called Nasutoceratops titusi, and it's looking a little bovine. A University of Utah grad student discovered the first specimen in 2006 in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in the high desert of southern Utah. At 15 feet long and 2.5 tons, the quadrupedal herbivore belonged to a family called ceratopsids, a group of dinos from the Late Cretaceous period that had beaks, horns and frills, like the Triceratops. Nasutoceratops' unusually elongated, forward-facing horns likely served as a sign of dominance and, if necessary, weapons in the competition for mates. Aside from its cow horns, Nasutoceratops is notable for its giant schnoz. Even among generally big-nosed ceratopsids, Nasutoceratops stands out: its name means "big-nosed horned face." It probably wasn't much of a sensitive sniffer, though. "The jumbo-sized schnoz of Nasutoceratops...

Read the whole article on PopSci

More from PopSci

Latest Science Newsletter

Get the latest and most popular science news articles of the week in your Inbox! It's free!

Check out our next project, Biology.Net