They discover “Lokiceratops rangiformis”, a new species of dinosaur from 78 million years ago

MEXICO CITY (apro).- Scientists discovered a new species of herbivorous dinosaur, which they named “Lokiceratops rangiformis” (“Loki’s horned face that looks like a caribou”). His remains were found in an excavation in a swampy area in the state of Montana, United States, as announced this Thursday, June 20, by the scientific magazine PeerJ.

Joseph Sertich, a paleontologist at the Smithsonian Institute and Colorado State University, and co-leader of the research, noted in PeerJ that this new dinosaur “sports the largest frilled horns ever seen in a ceratopsian (infraorder of dinosaurs).”

According to research more than 78 million years ago, lokiceratops inhabited the swamps and plains along the eastern coast of Laramidia, what is now the western part of North America. According to experts, the unique features of Lokiceratops rangiformis are the absence of a horn on the nose, enormous curved, blade-like horns on the back of the frill – the largest ever found on a horned dinosaur – and a distinctive tip and asymmetrical in the middle of the steering wheel.

It is for these reasons that it was given the name lokiceratops, meaning “horned face of Loki,” in honor of the sword-wielding Norse god Loki. The second name, “rangiformis,” refers to the different lengths of the antlers on each side of the frill, similar to the asymmetrical antlers of caribou and reindeer.

Analysis by the study team suggests that a family of horned dinosaurs, the centrosauruses, underwent rapid evolution and lived in relatively small geographic areas across the landmass of Laramidia Island. The study of this new species was funded by the Museum of Evolution, the University of Utah and the National Science Foundation.