New dinosaur species discovered in museum after nearly a century
10 Dec Daily Telegraph
A new species of horned dinosaur known as Spinops sternbergorum has
been discovered in the vaults of the Natural History Museum. The remains
of the herbivores, from the same family as the Triceratops, were
excavated from a quarry alongside a large group of fossils in a
so-called "bone bed" in Alberta, Canada in 1916. But the bones were
described as "rubbish" by the Museum's Keeper of Geology at the time,
and lay unnoticed for almost 100 years before experts realised they
belonged to an undescribed species.
They was rediscovered by a current group of researchers who decided
to take another look at the fossils and realised that they were unlike
any others known to science. Dr Andrew Farke, who led the research team,
said: "I knew right away that these fossils were something unusual, and
it was very exciting to learn about their convoluted history. "Here we
have not just one, but multiple individuals of the same species, so
we?re confident that it?s not just an odd example of a previously known
species."
The find means that paleontologists will have to redefine how the
horned dinosaur group, plant-eating dinosaurs sporting large horns and
bony frills on their necks, are classified. Dr Paul Barrett, the Natural
History Museum's resident researcher, said: "This discovery is of
particular importance as it has implications on the way we use the
spines that extend from the bony neck frill, which may have been used
for identification between individuals, in our classifications of these
animals. "These embellishments are central to determining relationships
between the groups of horned dinosaurs and are a sign of evolutionary
relatedness."
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