AFP – This reconstruction provided
by the Utah Museum of Natural History
shows the Utahceratops, one of two …
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Two new species of large horned dinosaurs -- close cousins of the famous herbivorous Triceratops -- have been unearthed in the western desert of the United States, paleontologists have revealed.
The "remarkable" finds -- one of the dinosaurs had a massive seven-foot (2.3-meter) skull, the other with a head decorated with 15 horns -- were made in southern Utah.
Researchers said on Wednesday the ancient beasts were thought to have lived some 76 million years ago in the late Cretaceous period.
"The giant plant-eaters were inhabitants of the 'lost continent' of Laramidia, formed when a shallow sea flooded the central region of North America," according to paleontologists, who revealed their work in an online open-access journal produced by the Public Library of Science.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100923/sc_afp/sciencepaleontologydinosaurus
The "remarkable" finds -- one of the dinosaurs had a massive seven-foot (2.3-meter) skull, the other with a head decorated with 15 horns -- were made in southern Utah.
Researchers said on Wednesday the ancient beasts were thought to have lived some 76 million years ago in the late Cretaceous period.
"The giant plant-eaters were inhabitants of the 'lost continent' of Laramidia, formed when a shallow sea flooded the central region of North America," according to paleontologists, who revealed their work in an online open-access journal produced by the Public Library of Science.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100923/sc_afp/sciencepaleontologydinosaurus