Holy moly, that’s an amazing looking dinosaur, even allowing for the fanciful pigmentation added by UK artist Luis Rey (hi def here). Obviously a ceratopsian, of the clan that includes iconic old Triceratops. This one is a newly identified species from Montana – and it’s not even the only member of the clade in the news.
A second one is from Mexico, not quite as fancifully painted but sporting the heftiest horns yet found on these extinct beasts. For awhile this morning I thought it was all the same news – until it started to look as though a few reporters got it mixed up. Ah ha. Mixed up was I. Two dinosaurs.
Doesn’t look as though anybody did them both in one story. But both seem to be in the news due to one encyclopedic book coming out from Indiana University Press, New Perspectives on Horned Dinosaurs. It appears that press agents at two institutions – one with the Cleveland Museum of Natural History where one of the book editors works, and one at the University of Utah where works a paleontologist responsible for one of the book’s star horned dino, put out releases highlighting separate entries in the tome. Looks like no reporter got them both, or called around enough to broaden the scope. Maybe the book itself is sufficiently lay reader-friendly for review in general media?
Stories on the maybe-Purplish one there:
- Cleveland Plain Dealer: John Mangels: Cleveland Museum of Natural History curator Michael Ryan identifies a new kind of horned dinosaur ; Nice job explaining the creature’s species name, Medusaceratops lokii.
- Comic Book Resources (blog) Kevin Melrose: Marvel’s Loki inspires name for newly discovered horned dinosaur ;
- MSNBC / LiveScience – Jeanna Bryner: Dinosaur had horns the size of baseball bats / Newly discovered dino likely didn’t have to worry about T. rex ; This one is Coahuilaceratops magnacuerna.
- Telegraph – Richard Alleyne: New armoured dinosaur with four foot horns on its head found by scientists ;
Grist for the Mills:
Cleveland Museum of Natural History Press Release ; Indiana University Press New Title with a spectrum one had never seen, “..from Archaeoceratops to Zuniiceratops…”; University of Utah Press Release ;
BUT WAIT, there’s more dino news stomping about, including:
- Deseret News – Amy Joi O’Donoghue: ‘Grinding mouth, wrinkle eye’ is name of newsly discovered species of dinosaur ;
- BBC – Katia Moskvitch: Horned dinosaurs ‘island hopped’ from Asia to Europe ; This is news to specialists, not so much for the rest of us. The dino is a small ceratopsian – but unlike others of its known relatives it didn’t live in Asia or North America. Bones turned up in Hungary.
- Scientific American (blog) Katherine Harmon: Small Triceratops relative suggests new dinosaur migration routes from Asia to Europe ;
- Calgary Herald – Yvonne Jeffery: Tyrrell’s ambitions gave us glimpse into Lives Of Dinosaurs ; local encomium to the big museum nearby.
– Charlie Petit
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