New Horned Dinosaur Nasutoceratops Titusi Discovered in Utah

A new horned dinosaur named Nasutoceratops titusi has been discovered in Southern Utah. At the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (GSENM) in southern Utah, a skull a previously unknown type of dinosaur was found. It had certain unique features that stand out such as an oversized nose and elongate, forward-curving horns over the eyes. GSENM encompasses around 1.9 million acres of high desert terrain in south-central Utah.

The name Nasutoceratops Titusi means big-nosed horned face (nasutoceratops) and also in honor of paleontologist Alan Titus (titusi).

The dinosaur is estimated to be 15 feet long and waighs about 2.50 tons. It was a four legged herbivore and belongs to the same family as that of the Triceratops and existed around 76 million years ago.

The area where the fossil was found used to be a swampy subtropical island continent known as Laramidia. Laramidia existed during the Late Cretaceous period ( 84 million to 70 million years ago) and stretched from Alaska to New Mexico.

Nasutoceratops belongs to the ceratopsids family, a group of big-bodied horned dinosaurs. It is the same family as that of the Triceratops, the most popular dinosaur in the group. More specifically, the Nasutoceratops are members of the subset of ceratopsids known as "centrosaurines," with Avaceratops being the closest known relative within this smaller subset of horned dinosaurs.

Another horned dinosaur that lived in what is now Alberta Canada, Spinops sternbergorum, was discovered two years ago.