Horny dinosaurs found from lost continent

A bizarre dinosaur with 15 horns is one of the two new close relatives of Triceratops that scientists unearthed in southern Utah. The dinosaur, named Kosmoceratops richardsoni, had a horn over its nose, one above each eye, one at the tip of each cheekbone, and 10 across the rear margin of its bony frill. Its head is the most ornate among all the dinosaurs.

It's name comes from the Latin word "kosmos" meaning ornate, the Greek word "ceratops" meaning horned face, and the latter part honors Scott Richardson, the volunteer who discovered the two skulls of this animal in 2007.

Kosmoceratops is one of the most amazing animals known, with a huge skull decorated with an assortment of bony bells and whistles with 15 feet long and about 5,500 pounds in weight.

Its larger relative which was newly discovered, is the Utahceratops gettyi which was named honoring Mike Getty, the paleontology collections manager at the Utah Museum of Natural History, who discovered this dinosaur in 2000. It possessed a large horn over the nose, and short, blunt eye horns that projected strongly to the side rather than upward, much more like the horns of modern bison than those of Triceratops and its other relatives, known as ceratopsians.

Utahceratops was roughly 18 to 22 feet long and about 6 feet tall at the shoulder and hips, and weighed about 6,600 to 8,800 pounds. They also possessed a skull about 7 feet long.

Although scientists have speculated that the ornate horns and frills of ceratopsians might have helped fight off carnivores, for the newly discovered dinosaurs. Most of these bizarre features would have made lousy weapons to fend off predators.

Source: http://www.livescience.com/

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