New Species of Dinosaur Discovered

Michael Ryan, the curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, has discovered of a new species of dinosaur. Named the Albertaceratops nesmoi. It is named after Alberta, Canada, where Ryan dug up its fossilized remains while a graduate student, and Cecil Nesmo, a rancher near Manyberries, Alberta, who has assisted fossil hunters in Canada. Ryan was camping on Nesmo's property when he found the fossil.

The dinosaur was a plant eater, and weighed as much as a pickup, according to Ryan. "If you thought of the largest bull you could think of ... that's probably the size range this animal was like."

The dinosaur has horns over its eyebrows more than 3 feet long. Experts say this suggests the dinosaur might be an evolutionary step between dinosaurs with even larger horns and the small horned dinosaurs which followed.

The horns, which are 12 inches around - as thick as a human arm - are like those of the triceratops, which came 10 million years after the Albertaceratops. However, the new species belonged to a subfamily of dinosaurs that typically only had tiny horns, no more than a few inches long, over their eyes.

The discovery was published in the March edition of the Journal of Paleontology. "Unquestionably, it's an important find," said Peter Dodson, a paleontologist from the University of Pennsylvania. "It was sort of the grandfather or great-uncle of the really diverse horned dinosaurs that came after it."

The oldest known dinosaur in North America is called Zuniceratops, which lived roughly 90 million years ago. Ryan's discovery, which was roughly 20 feet long, came 12 million years later.

Mr. Nesmo's ranch has been known for decades as a rich area for fossils. He remembers researchers visiting the farm when he was only four years old. "When we find good specimens, we always direct the right people to it," he said. As for having new species named after him? "It's quite an honor for me," he says.

Sources:

www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/03/04/ap3482476.html
www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070303.wdino04/BNStory/Science/