The dinosaur, which scientists nicknamed Lokiceratops rangiformis (or simply Loki), roamed the western part of North America more than 78 million years ago, when the continent was divided into several island masses.
The fossils that helped determine Loki’s identity were unearthed by a team of researchers from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Panama in northern Montana, near Canada. The dinosaur is believed to have settled along the eastern shores of Laramide, a late Cretaceous island continent that divided what we now call North America into two parts.
The first part of the dinosaur’s name Loki — is a reference to the Norse god (given that the skull is being shipped to Denmark and that it resembles the helmet of the Marvel character of the same name), and the second part refers to its membership in a diverse group of dinosaurs known as ceratopsids (which are believed to have first appeared on Earth about 92 million years ago). This is the fourth such ceratopsid and the fifth horned dinosaur discovered in this region.
A Loki is a large herbivore with curved horns above its eyes. However, as menacing as they look in the reconstruction, they were actually used mostly as an ornament to encourage females to mate.
The body of the Lociceratops was 6.7 meters long, and the skull itself stretched for 2 meters (from the tip of the nose to the tips of the horns). The dinosaur probably weighed 5 tons, which puts it on par with the largest elephants, which found on Earth today.
The team’s discovery is described in detail in the article, published on Thursday in the journal PeerJ, while the Utah Museum of Natural History and other affiliated institutions will unveil the dinosaur to the public this week. The team also provided reconstructions of the appearance of Loki and three other ceratopsid species that lived alongside him.
Source: Press release from the University of Utah, Gizmodo, The New York Times