In the badlands of northern Montana, on the border between the United States and Canada, a team of paleontologists has discovered the fossils of a dinosaur with huge, blade-like horns. The impression this feature made on his skull inspired them to name him after a well-known Marvel character: Loki, who in the films is played by Tom Hiddleston.
Lokiceratops rangiformiswhich means “Loki’s horned face that looks like a caribou,” inhabited that region 78 million years ago. The study of its bones, in addition to providing knowledge about what it was like, has also allowed us to obtain new and relevant information about the horned dinosaurs called ceratopsiansThe research, led by experts from the Utah Museum of Natural History, was presented today, June 20, in the scientific journal PeerJ.
What is Lokiceratops rangiformis like?
The dinosaur related to Loki is one of the largest ceratopsians that ever existed on Earthaccording to paleontologists. It is estimated that it was 6.7 metres long and had a skull that was more than 2 metres long, from its nose to the end of its horns. It is believed to have weighed 5,000 kilograms.
Reconstruction of Lokiceratops. Photo: Evolutionsmuseet/Knuthenborg
With its colossal size, the most striking thing about Lokiceratops is its horns. “The new dinosaur goes beyond the strange ceratopsian helmets, sporting the largest frilled horns ever seen “in a ceratopsian,” said Joseph Sertich, a paleontologist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and Colorado State University and co-director of the study for a publication on the scientific platform EurekAlert!.
“These skull ornaments are one of the keys to unlocking the diversity of horned dinosaurs and demonstrate that evolutionary selection for showy displays contributed to the dizzying richness of Cretaceous ecosystems,” he said.
The height of Lokiceraptor is estimated to be comparable to that of the largest elephants on Earth. Photo: NASA
Important discovery for the knowledge of horned dinosaurs
The discovery of Lokiceraptor suggests a greater diversity of horned dinosaurs than previously recognized. According to Dr. Mark Loewen, co-director of the study and a professor at the University of Utah, “the high endemism observed in centrosaurines implies that dinosaur diversity is currently underestimated.”
“The phylogenetic results show that Lokiceratops, together with Albertaceratops and Medusaceratops, was part of a clade restricted to a small portion of northern Laramidia approximately 78 million years ago,” the study states.
Lokiceratops and the other three known Centrosaurine dinosaurs from the Judith River Formation. Photo: Fabrizio Lavezzi
The find also provides evidence that horned dinosaurs evolved rapidly in limited geographic regions. “The endemism found in centrosaurines is greater than in any other dinosaur group,” said Savhannah Carpenter, co-author of the study.
The great diversification of dinosaurs, then, would be a consequence of the isolation of species in Laramidia. “Rapid evolution may have led to a change of between 100 and 200 thousand years of individual species of these horned dinosaurs,” explains Loewen.
