Newly Discovered Horned Dinosaur Had Wing-Shaped Headgear

Researchers have unearthed a new species of unusual horned dinosaurs in Montana. The new dinosaur has unique, wing-shaped headgear and once roamed the Earth during the Late Cretaceous Period about 77 million years ago.

The dinosaur is called Mercuriceratops gemini. It stretched about 20 feet long and weighed more than two tons. It's most interesting feature, though, is the wing-like ornamentation on its head that actually resembles the wings on the helmet of the Roman god, Mercury. In addition to this unusual headgear, the dinosaur had a parrot-like beak and probably had a two long brow horns above its eyes.

"Mercuriceratops took a unique evolutionary path that shaped the large frill on the back of its skull into protruding wings like the decorative fins on class 1950s cars," said Michael Ryan, one of the researchers, in a news release. "It definitely would have stood out from the herd during the Late Cretaceous. Horned dinosaurs in North America used their elaborate skull ornamentation to identify each other and to attract mates-not just for protection from predators. The wing-like protrusions on the sides of its frill may have offered male Mercuriceratop a competitive advantage in attracting mates."

The researchers first found specimens of the dinosaur in the Judith River Formation of Montana and the Dinosaur Park Formation of Alberta. Skull fragments were collected from both locations, revealing a bit more about this unusual creature.

"The discovery of a previously unknown species in relatively well-studied rocks underscores that we still have many more new species of dinosaurs left to find," said Mark Loewen, one of the researchers, in a news release.

In fact, this dinosaur is just the latest in a series of finds being made as part of the Southern Alberta Dinosaur Project, which is designed to fill in gaps in our knowledge of Late Cretaceous dinosaurs and study their evolution.

The findings are published online in the journal Naturwissenschaften.