Paleontologists have announced the discovery of a remarkable new species of horned dinosaur named Lokiceratops rangiformis. The findings, published in the journal PeerJ, detail a dinosaur that lived approximately 78 million years ago in the swamps and floodplains of what is now northern Montana.
Lokiceratops is distinguished by its extraordinary skull ornamentation. It lacks a nose horn but possesses the largest frill horns ever seen on a horned dinosaur, with blade-like projections curving forward. Researchers note its frill displays an asymmetric, mosaic pattern of horns, inspiring its species name 'rangiformis', meaning 'looking like a caribou'.
The dinosaur was a herbivore, not a fish-eater, and is part of the centrosaurine group of ceratopsians. The fossilized remains were discovered in the Kennedy Coulee region of Montana, near the U.S.-Canada border. This discovery helps illustrate the rapid evolution and diversity of large horned dinosaurs in Laramidia, the island continent that existed on the western side of the Western Interior Seaway.
The nearly complete skull and partial skeleton are now housed at the Museum of Evolution in Maribo, Denmark. The genus name 'Lokiceratops' translates to 'Loki's horned face', a reference to the Norse god Loki and the blade-shaped horns resembling depictions of the deity's weaponry.
