TWO NEW CLADES OF HORNED DINOSAURS IDENTIFIED

Scientists have identified two new tribes or clades of ceratopsian dinosaurs (horned dinosaurs) on the basis of their frill ornamentation distinctions. This study by the Cleaveland Museum of Natural History has been published online in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences.

These two new clades are Nasutoceratopsini and Centrosaurine. The Nasutoceratopsini had large broad frills bereft of well-developed ornamentation. Since they weren’t dinosaurian show-offs, they easily blended into their environments.

Work recognising this new clad is based on a dinosaur fossil preserved at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa, Canada. It was collected from Southern Alberta some 80 years back. Though the skull is highly fragmented, its unornamented shield is distinctive. This allowed the scientists to group it with the horned species like Avaceratops from Montana and Nasutoceratops from Utah.

The Centrosaurine tribe of dinosaurs has highly ornamented frills and short brow horns. It has been found that they lived side-by-side in the Late Cretaceous period in western North America. As these two had different types of jaws, they had different feeding strategies. Hence they did not compete with each other for resources, said Dr Jordan Mallon, a co-author of this paper.

Content: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/12/161213113206.htm

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