14 DAY TRIAL // A new species of dinosaur was discovered in Canada, it has been confirmed. Pictured above is Xenoceratops foremostensis, a ceratopsid that lived approximately 80 million years ago.
It’s a horned dino and, as Mashable points out, at the same time also one of the oldest big-bodied dinosaurs of its kind ever discovered.
“Despite its intimidating appearance, Xenoceratops was a reasonably gentle vegetarian, like the rest of its ceratopsid kin,” the e-zine says.
“It used its horns for self-defense rather than hunting. As with modern animals like deer and elk, it’s a stretch to think the horns on these normally gentle giants didn’t come out when mating season rolled around,” Mashable adds.
“Xenoceratops” means “alien horned face,” so it’s no stretch of the imagination to see why the species (first identified in 1958, but only recently established as a separate one) is called this way: dinosaurs had two large horns on the head and several ones on the “frill” around it, which was capped off with another huge pair.