Regaliceratops
Name:
Regaliceratops
(Royal horned face).
Phonetic: Re-gal-e-seh-rah-tops.
Named By: Caleb M. Brown & Donald M.
Henderson - 2015.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia, Dinosauria,
Ornithischia, Ceratopsidae, Chasmosaurinae, Triceratopsini.
Species: R. peterhewsi
(type).
Diet: Herbivore.
Size: Roughly about 5 meters long.
Known locations: Canada, Alberta - St Mary
River Formation.
Time period: Middle Maastrichtian of the Cretaceous.
Fossil representation: Almost complete three
dimensionally preserved skull with some slight distortion from
compression.
Officially
named and described in 2015 from a single skull, Regaliceratops
has already gone down as a particularly interesting ceratopsian
dinosaur. The larger ceratopsians of the late cretaceous are usually
divided into centrosaurines and chasmosauines, the former having
large nasal horns and reduced frills, while the latter usually have
reduced nasal horns and enlarged neck frills. Regaliceratops
is a
definite chasmosaurine ceratopsian, and one that lived after all the
centrosaurines seem to have mostly disappeared from North America.
Despite this, Regaliceratops still possessed an
enlarged nasal
horn, a feature that is usually very small in other chasmosaurine
genera.
The
horns and neck frills on ceratopsian dinosaurs were primarily for
display (and not defence like they were popularly perceived to be for
the first hundred years of their study). By having a differently
shaped frill and horns, multiple genera and species of ceratopsian
dinosaurs could co-exist at the same time as one another without
confusing members of other species for their own. When the
centrosaurine and chasmosaurine ceratopsians were both present on the
landscape, it made sense for one group to mainly develop horns and
the other the neck frill. After the centrosaurines disappeared
however, this led something of a display void, so it seems that
Regaliceratops, and possibly other chasmosaurine
genera began to
exploit this gap and develop both their horns and their frill to form
even more highly ornate designs.
Regaliceratops
means ‘regal horned face’ in reference to the way the edge of the
frill resembles a crown. The type species name is in honour of Peter
Hews, the geologist who first found the holotype skull alongside the
Oldman River in 2005. At the time of the description however,
the holotype skull was nicknamed ‘Hellboy’ after the comic book
character who has two stubby horns growing out from his forehead.
As
well as being a Chasmosaurine ceratopsian, Regaliceratops
has also
been placed within the sub-family Triceratopsini. In the original
description Regaliceratops was also noted as being
similar to the
genera Anchiceratops
and Triceratops.
Further reading
- A New Horned Dinosaur Reveals Convergent Evolution in Cranial
Ornamentation in Ceratopsidae. - Current Biology - Caleb M.
Brown & Donald M. Henderson - 2015.
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