New Dinosaur species Discovered in Texas!

              An April issue of the journal Cretaceous Research published a paper that releases new information. A new species of dinosaur has been discovered and it’s got a softball sized lump of bone on the top of its skull. Apparently the species is of the herbivore variety and about as big as a medium sized dog of the modern age. It is supposed to have lived 70 to 80 million years ago according to Nicolas Longrich of Yale University.

               Longrich is the lead author of the paper and he and his team discovered the fossil fragments at Big Bend National Park in Texas (2008). They know that it is not a previously identified species of dinosaur because the team compared the fossils of this new dino with ones of similar characteristics from Canada and Montana. It is apparently a new genus of thick-skulled, bipedal pachycephalosaur dinosaurs.

Longrich

          The new genus of dinosaur was given the name Texacephale langstoni. Texacephale" means "Texas head" and "langstoni" is named after Wann Langston, a fellow paleontologist.

        These types of dinosaur are one out of about a dozen that are known to have the distinguished lump of bone on top of their skull, which they speculate to have been used as a ramming mechanism against rivals, somewhat like what oxen and buffalo males do for territory.

         The findings of this specific characteristic has brought about better understanding on the idea that northern species dinosaur (as in Canada and northern United States) have distinct differences from their southern counterparts. Longrich says,

"Instead of roaming across the North American continent, we see pockets of different dinosaurs that are pretty isolated from one another. Every time we get good fossils from Texas, they end up looking very different from those to the north."

       Unfortunately fossils from Big Bend National Park tend to be in unsavory condition, not being preserved well. This set back leaves scientists with only fragments of the big picture, and are unable to get a clear idea of what they looked like, etc.

      However, with this new discovery the team might have dug up an important piece of this puzzle. They once believed this species to have originated in Asia but now it seems they are likely to evolved in North America. Longrich is optimistic to find more fossils of this nature in the future, especially since there have been so many recent findings in Texas and likewise. He even says,

"I think we underestimate how many different species there were."

         Other authors included on the paper were of those who discovered a more intact fossil of this species. They are Julia Sankey (leader of field work) and Darren Tanke.

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