Its bones have sit around on a shelf in a Canadian museum since 1958 , but paleontologists have eventually taken it upon themselves to reconstruct this long - lost cousin of the triceratops . identify Xenoceratops foremostensis , meaning “ alien - horned ” face , ” the monumental herbivore is Canada ’s oldest tusk and large - bodied dinosaur , one that roamed Alberta over 80 - million years ago .
Theworkof paleontologists Michael Ryan and David Evans reveals a dinosaur with an telling array of features . Based on the fossilized cadaver of three grownup individual , they estimate that the distinctive Xenoceratops weighed an staggering 4,400 pound ( 2 wads or 2,000 kg ) and measured 20 feet ( 6 meter ) in length .
It also featured a neb - like mouth and a monolithic neck opening shield topped by two large spikes . The outer edge of its frill were embedded with another 12 smaller spikes , while four longer spikes bug out from its head and checkbones .
Ryan and Evans were particularly aroused about the discovery in that it show just how long ago these big - horned dinosaurs , call ceratopsids , existed in Canada — what by and by resulted in dinosaurs with unlike horn orientations . The paelontologists speculate that the motor horn were used by the males to attract distaff counterparts .
Details of their work can be found inCanadian Journal of Earth Sciences .
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