The February 4 session of the 2016 Royal Tyrrell Museum Speaker Series is a presentation by Dr. Caleb Brown, Post-doctoral Fellow, entitled ““Hellboy” the Regaliceratops - What this New Horned Dinosaur Tells us About The Evolution of Ceratopsians.”
In June of 2015, the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology revealed a new species of horned dinosaur named Regaliceratops peterhewsi, meaning ‘royal horned face,’ a discovery that turned out to be one of the most exciting dinosaur stories of 2015.
The dinosaur, a member of the Ceratopsidae family, is notably different from other known relatives in both the size and shape of the horns on its face and a distinctive, crown-like frill at the back of its skull. The beaked, herbivorous dinosaur dates from the Cretaceous Period, a time that saw the highest diversity of ceratopsian dinosaurs. Nicknamed “Hellboy” due to the combination of difficult excavation conditions and hardness of the rock surrounding the skull, this specimen has provided exciting new information about the evolution of horned dinosaurs.
This talk will highlight the story behind the discovery and preparation of the skull and illustrate the process involved with the description and naming of this new species. The talk will also show why the horns and frill of this new animal were so surprising, and what this means for the pattern of evolution of the horns and frill in the Ceratopsidae.
The Royal Tyrrell Museum’s Speaker Series talks are free and open to the public. The series will be held every Thursday until April 30, 2015 at 11:00 a.m. in the Museum auditorium. Speaker Series talks are also available on the Museum’s YouTube channel: youtube.com/user/RoyalTyrrellMuseum.
