Posted on 03/03/2007 7:29:23 PM PST by NormsRevenge
CLEVELAND - 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.
Michael Ryan, curator of vertebrate paleontology for the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, published the discovery in this month's Journal of Paleontology. He dug up the fossil six years ago in southern Alberta, Canada, while a graduate student for the University of Calgary.
"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."
Ryan named the new dinosaur Albertaceratops nesmoi, after the region and Cecil Nesmo, a rancher near Manyberries, Alberta, who has helped fossil hunters.
The creature was about 20 feet long and lived 78 million years ago.
The oldest known horned dinosaur in North America is called Zuniceratops. It lived 12 million years before Ryan's find, and also had large horns.
That makes the newly found creature an intermediate between older forms with large horns and later small-horned relatives, said State of Utah paleontologist Jim Kirkland, who with Douglas Wolfe identified Zuniceratops in New Mexico in 1998. He predicted then that something like Ryan's find would turn up.
"Lo and behold, evolutionary theory actually works," he said.
This photo provided Saturday, March 3, 2007 by the Cleveland Museum of Natural History shows Dr. Michael J. Ryan with the holotype skull of the new horned dinosaur, Albertaceratops nesmoi at an unidentified location. Ryan, curator of vertebrate paleontology for the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, published his discovery in the March 2007 Journal of Paleontology. (AP Photo/Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Chad Kerychuk/Digital Dream Machine)
Cleveland Museum:
http://www.cmnh.org/
Southern Alberta Dinosaur Research: http://www.dinoresearch.ca/
This illustration provided by the Cleveland Museum of Natural History shows a new dinosaur, Albertaceratops nesmoi. Michael Ryan, curator of vertebrate paleontology for the museum, published the discovery in this month's Journal of Paleontology. Ryan dug up the fossil six years ago in southern Alberta, Canada, while a graduate student for the University of Calgary. The new dinosaur species, named after the region where it was discovered and Cecil Nesmo, a rancher near Manyberries, Alberta, who has helped fossil hunters, was a plant-eater with yard-long horns over its eyebrows. (AP Photo/Cleveland Museum of Natural History)
Is Canada winning the war on fossils?
YEC INTREP
who knew cecil was a plant-eater with yard-long horns?
n'est pas?
with horns like that, you always let cecil go first in line at the salad bar.
Yep, that looks like its 20 feet long, according to New Math.
*suggesting* an evolutionary middle step= written in stone
"Lo and behold, evolutionary theory actually works," he said.
Hallelujah!
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