Scientists From New Mexico Discover And Name New Dinosaur

A new species of dinosaur was discovered and named by a group of scientists from the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science in Albuquerque. The bones were found 20-years-ago in Southern Arizona and are a new species of ceratopsid, which is a horned dinosaur.

The creature walked the Earth 71 million years ago. The scientists said that they knew what kind of dinosaur it was, but had no idea that the find was significant. The creature was 11-feet long and weighed 3/4 of a ton and was a plant eater.

The name chosen for the creature by scientists Sebastian Dalman, John-Paul Hodnett, Asher Lichtig, and Spencer Lucas was Crittendenceratops Krzyzanowski. Lucas said that it took someone looking at the bones hard enough to realize the importance of the find, Lucas gave Dalman credit for the discovery.

In its time, the creature roamed through much of North America from Alaska to Mexico. The Crittendenceratops Krzyzanowski differs from other centrosaurs because of the unique shape of the bones in its head. The discovery of the bones in Arizona shows a broader distribution for the dinosaur than previously believed.

The bones of the dinosaur were originally discovered in rocks southeast of Tucson along the margins of a large lake that existed in the Late Cretaceous period. The Krzyzanowski portion of the chosen name is for the late Stan Krzyzanowski, the research associate at the museum who discovered the bones two decades ago.