'Longhorn' Dinosaur Fossil Discovered in Utah

[Buster's Uncle]

'Longhorn' Dinosaur Fossil Discovered in Utah
LiveScience.com
By Tia Ghose, Staff Writer  July 17, 2013  Science, Social Science, & Humanities

Horned mega-herbivores such as Nasutoceratops (pictured here) and the iconic Triceratops thrived during the Cretaceous period.

The fossilized remains of a newly identified dinosaur with horns so long they would put Triceratops to shame has been discovered in the Utah desert.

The new species, described today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, was dubbed Nasutoceratops, which translates to "big-nosed horned face." The giant beast lived roughly 76 million years ago and was part of the ceratopsid group, which consists of plant-eating, rhinoceros-like dinos, including Triceratops.

"It has the biggest nose and the longest horns of any of the ceratopsids," said study co-author Mark Loewen, a paleontologist at the University of Utah. "It's the Texas Longhorn of the ceratopsids." [See Images of the Longhorn of Dinos]


Ancient micro-continent

Though the region is parched now, during the Cretaceous Period, when Nasutoceratops  lived, Utah was full of dense, leafy forests, streams and swamps that made it resemble the Mississippi Delta of today.

At that time, a shallow sea split North America in two, and many animals lived on a long, skinny continent called Laramidia that spanned from Alaska all the way to Mexico. The narrow strip of coastline was a hotbed of dinosaur diversity. During this time period, many of the iconic species, from duckbilled dinosaurs to the biggest Tyrannosaurus rex, flourished.

The emergence of flowering plants several million years earlier probably allowed mega-herbivores, such as the imposing Triceratops, to evolve from smaller herbivores that were about the size of a house cat, Loewen said.


Desert discovery

Loewen and his colleagues unearthed two specimens several years ago in the barren deserts of Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument in Utah. One of the specimens included a mostly intact, 6-foot-long (1.8 meters) skull, along with parts of the creature's spine and a few fragments of its legs. The other specimen contained just a few fragments of skull.

The team dubbed the animal Nasutoceratops titusi, with the second part of the name honoring paleontologist Alan Titus, who works at the monument.

The majestic herbivore was roughly 16 feet (5 m) long, and a relatively austere frill with little ornamentation surrounding its head. The dinosaur had a long, flaring snout and absurdly long, curving horns that stretched almost to the tip of its nose.

Similar to modern-day elk or deer, Nasuceratops likely used its outlandish horns to deter rivals and deflect predators. But the main purpose of the ornamental headgear was probably sexual selection, Loewen said.

"Mates thought they were sexy," Loewen told LiveScience.

The researchers have no idea whether these specimens were male or female, so the scientists can't say whether such ornamental headgear was unique to males, as is common in modern-day deer. It's also possible that similar horns adorned the heads of both sexes, as is the case with modern water buffalo, Loewen said.

http://news.yahoo.com/longhorn-dinosaur-fossil-discovered-utah-170740862.html

[Unorthodox]

Hm, that artist impression is not how I envisioned it, seeing the skull on the news...

[Buster's Uncle]

How did you imagine it looking?

[Buster's Uncle]

Here's a version of the story w/ the skull pictured:

Bizarre New Texas Longhorn Dinosaur Bolsters Controversial Theory of Dino Diversity
Scientific American
Bryan Bumgardner 22 hours ago  Science, Social Science, & Humanities
 

Reconstruction by Rob Gaston

A newly unearthed dinosaur has been called the "Texas longhorn" of its family tree, and it's not hard to see why: Nasutoceratops titusi, a relative of the famous Triceratops, sported 3.5-foot-long horns, measured 15 feet long from nose to tail, and weighed 2.5 tons. But this fossil is significant for more than just its anatomy--the discovery of Nasutoceratops provides powerful evidence for a theory that may explain  the astonishing diversity of dinosaurs in Western North America millions of years ago.

Nasutoceratops is a member of the ceratopsid family, a group of quadrupedal herbivores that lived during the Campanian stage of the Late Cretaceous period, between 84 and 70 million years ago. Like many ceratopsids Nasutoceratops bears horns and a neck frill. But "It's a bizarre animal in some respects," says paleontologist Scott Sampson of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and leader of the team that discovered Nasutoceratops. In most ceratopsids, the major differences lie in the horns and frills. Trim them off and it's hard to tell the animals apart, he observes. But in addition to its oversized horns, Nasutoceratops differs from its cousins in having a massive nose. "It represents a previously unknown group of dinosaurs," Sampson asserts.

Sampson also argues that Nasutoceratops provides strong evidence of dinosaur provincialism, a phenomenon that caused vast speciation of dinosaurs across western North America. His team found the specimen in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah. During most of the Late Cretaceous, high sea levels flooded much of North America, creating a landmass named "Laramidia": a narrow stretch of land around the young Rocky Mountains, stretching from Alaska to Mexico. Laramidia was less than one third the size of present-day North America. Dinosaurs flourished on this sliver of land. More than a dozen species of ceratopsids have been unearthed as far north as Alaska--but there's something confusing about these discoveries.

"Beginning in the 1960s, paleontologists were starting to notice that dinosaurs they were finding in the north were different than the ones in the south," Sampson says. "There was a question in people's minds about whether these animals were living at the same time." Yet advances in dating technology confirmed that several separate but related species of ceratopsids were living on the same continent at the same time. For example, Styracosaurus albertensis, another ceratopsid, roamed Laramidia at the same time as Nasutoceratops, just a few hundred miles to the north in what is now Alberta. But how could groups of giant dinosaurs live only a few hundred miles apart on the same piece of land without interbreeding? Speciation usually occurs when an ancestral species is divided into groups that evolve separately over time because of some impassable barrier.

"I can't imagine why something the size of a small rhino can't walk to Alberta and wouldn't have a species range that far north," says Mark Loewen of the University of Utah, a coauthor of the new study. "Something is keeping these animals from moving back and forth from north to south."

And that's where the dinosaur provincialism theory comes in. Having compared plant, fish, mammal and crocodile remains from northern and southern Laramidia, Sampson and Loewen believe that some unknown barriers were separating and combining groups of species over millions of years.

"What we think is happening is that Laramidia was a crucible of evolution," Loewen says. "It was really easy to separate small populations of species, who through sexual selection drift genetically one way or another. Later, when the barrier is removed and the populations come back together, they don't interbreed and compete for resources instead."

The barriers that caused speciation are speculative at best, Loewen says. An ancient river system used to sprawl over Laramidia and could have separated populations, but modern giant herbivores are skilled swimmers. It has also been suggested that slight differences in climate and plant life could have promoted provincialism.

Not only did the ceratopsids of Laramidia diversify like crazy, but Loewen suspects this group evolved quickly. Today in Africa there are a handful of mammals that grow to over 1000 kilograms. In Laramidia, more than 20 species of dinosaur grew over 1000 kilograms on a much smaller landmass. This proves the lush, tropical continent of Laramidia was able to support lots of rapidly evolving animals.

Whenever we're seeing these things, they've changed," Loewen says. " The group is way more diverse than we would have thought even ten years ago."

Sampson thinks Nasutoceratops is just the beginning of a wave of fossils that will support the dinosaur provincialism theory. "It suggests that there was in fact a whole different group of these horned dinosaurs evolving for potentially millions of years in the south, while there was a distinct community in the north," he says. "That's what we're expecting to find as we continue excavating."

http://news.yahoo.com/bizarre-texas-longhorn-dinosaur-bolsters-controversial-theory-dino-183500641.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Big-nosed, horned-faced dinosaur unearthed in Utah
Associated Press
18 hours ago

 

A reconstruction of a "Nasutoceratops titusi" is shown during a news conference at the Natural History Museum of Utah Wednesday, July 17, 2013, in Salt lake City. Researchers in Salt Lake City say fossil-hunters unearthed the bones of a new type of big-nosed, horned-faced dinosaur in southern Utah. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Researchers in Utah said Wednesday they discovered a new type of big-nosed, horned-faced dinosaur that lived about 76 million years ago in the area of what is now the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

The discovery of the creature, named "Nasutoceratops titusi," was described in the British scientific journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B and by officials at the National History Museum of Utah in Salt Lake City.

The dinosaur was a wide-bodied plant-eater that grew to 15 feet long and weighed 2 1/2 tons, said Patti Carpenter, spokeswoman for the museum. It is considered unique for its oversized nose and its exceptionally long, curved and forward-pointing horns over the eyes. It also had a low, narrow blade-like horn above the nose.

Research headed by Scott Sampson, former chief curator at the museum, determined that Nasutoceratops lived in a swampy and subtropical environment about 62 miles from the water.

It was part of the same family as the well-known Triceratops, from which it derives part of its name. The second part of the name recognizes paleontologist Alan Titus for his years of research work in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

Paleontologist Alan Titus stands next to a fossil of a "Nasutoceratops titusi"

The bones were discovered in 2006 by a University of Utah masters student, Eric Lund. Specimens are permanently housed and displayed at the museum at the University of Utah. Lund, who is now at Ohio University, is a co-author of the study with researchers Mark Loewen, Andrew Farke and Katherine Clayton.

Sampson is now vice president of research and collections at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. He said researchers don't believe the large nose of the Nasutoceratops had anything to do with smell, since olfactory receptors were far back in the head.

Horned dinosaurs or "ceratopsids," were four-footed herbivores that lived during the late Cretaceous period, when the North American continent was split in two by waters of a warm shallow sea.

Researchers call the western portion of the continent Laramidia. It now yields dinosaur digs and research sites from Alaska to Mexico.

Research was funded by the federal Bureau of Land Management, the National Science Foundation and the museums in Salt Lake City and Denver.

http://news.yahoo.com/big-nosed-horned-faced-dinosaur-unearthed-utah-194249111.html

There's more shots of the skull from different angles at the link...

[Unorthodox]

Yeah, the local news site has taken down their story...I'm thinking they ran the wrong photos. 

[Buster's Uncle]

I'm always on the lookout for bones for you...

[Unorthodox]

And it's appreciated.