A new dinosaur has joined the ranks of the weirdest dinosaurs that ever existed, with beautiful – if somewhat dangerous – headgear to rival catwalk creations. Named Lokiceratops rangiformis, the new dinosaur is one of the biggest and most ornate horned dinosaurs ever found.
The horned dinosaur's unique features include some scientists have never seen before. Best of all are its gigantic horns, like curved blades, on the back of its frill: the largest ever observed on a horned dinosaur.
The dinosaur's frill also has a strange, asymmetric spike in the middle of its frill, and – weirdest of all – it doesn’t have a nose horn like other horned dinosaurs.
The first part of the dinosaur’s name, Lokiceratops, refers to the Norse god Loki who wielded blades while identifying the creature as a ceratopsid. That’s the same family that includes the iconic Triceratops, though Lokiceratops rangiformis appeared at least 12 million years before Triceratops.
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The new dinosaur is also named after caribou (the rangiformis part of its name) due to those strange, asymmetric spikes that are like caribou and reindeers’ asymmetric antlers.
Described in the journal PeerJ, its fossils were discovered in 2019 from the badlands of northern Montana, USA – just a few miles from the border with Canada.
That’s where the horned dinosaur lived over 78 million years ago, in the swamps and floodplains that much later became today’s mountains. Despite its blade-like horns and the fact it was the largest horned dinosaur at the time, it was a vegetarian. In fact, the scientists say the species was likely preyed on by a tyrannosaur like Thanatotheristes.
The ceratopsids group evolved during the Late Cretaceous (92 million years ago), developing extraordinary features and distinctive patterns of horns. Lokiceratops rangiformis was part of a line of dinosaurs isolated on the island continent of Laramidia (now North America), where they underwent rapid evolution. Ceratopsids lived right up until all dinosaurs went extinct.
“This new dinosaur pushes the envelope on bizarre ceratopsian headgear, sporting the largest frill horns ever seen in a ceratopsian,” said palaeontologist Joseph Sertich of Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and Colorado State University, and co-leader of the study.
“These skull ornaments are one of the keys to unlocking horned dinosaur diversity and demonstrate that evolutionary selection for showy displays contributed to the dizzying richness of Cretaceous ecosystems.”
The discovery of the new fossils suggests that true dinosaur diversity has been underestimated. Previously, palaeontologists thought that only two horned dinosaurs could co-exist at any one time.
Now, Lokiceratops rangiformis brings the number of species living together up to five – changing what we know about dinosaur life at this time.
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