Old horn face is something new
Source: Xinhua |
August 29, 2010, Sunday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
CHINESE scientists have identified a new genus of dinosaur in a mountainous city in Shandong Province, a type of ceratops never found before, experts from the Chinese Academy of Sciences said yesterday.
Fossils of the dinosaur were unearthed in January 2008 in Zhucheng City, where several Cretaceous dinosaurs have been found since the 1960s, "but was identified only quite recently," said researcher Xu Xing.
Xu, of the CAS Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, has named it "Sinoceratops Zhuchengensis."
"Its skull is at least 180 centimeters long and 105 centimeters wide," said Xu.
"It has a 30cm long horn on its face and at least 10 crooked, smaller horns on the top of its head."
Ceratops (horn face) were large, plant-eating dinosaurs of the late Cretaceous period from more than 65 million years ago. The most renowned ceratops is triceratops, a herbivore weighing over 10 tons.
The discovery might rewrite current theories on the morphological transition among dinosaurs, Xu said.
Fossils of the dinosaur were unearthed in January 2008 in Zhucheng City, where several Cretaceous dinosaurs have been found since the 1960s, "but was identified only quite recently," said researcher Xu Xing.
Xu, of the CAS Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, has named it "Sinoceratops Zhuchengensis."
"Its skull is at least 180 centimeters long and 105 centimeters wide," said Xu.
"It has a 30cm long horn on its face and at least 10 crooked, smaller horns on the top of its head."
Ceratops (horn face) were large, plant-eating dinosaurs of the late Cretaceous period from more than 65 million years ago. The most renowned ceratops is triceratops, a herbivore weighing over 10 tons.
The discovery might rewrite current theories on the morphological transition among dinosaurs, Xu said.
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