- By Julie Patricia (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
- The disputed Sam Noble speciman.
Another ceratopsian dispute!!!!
The Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History has a skeleton that had previously been identified as a Pentaceratops.:
But the Sam Noble specimen may not be a Pentaceratops at all. Longrich lists 22 features that distinguish the large specimen from the smaller Pentaceratops and more closely associate it with the subgroup of horned dinosaurs containing Triceratops, Torosaurus and their closest relatives (called the Triceratopsini). On this basis Longrich has called the unique specimen Titanoceratops.
Additionally, like the great Triceratops/Torosaurus debate, some paleontologists have posited that Pentaceratops and Titanoceratops “may be growth stages of just one species as well”.
In other paleontological news, Isabelle Kruta of the Paris’ National Museum of Natural History took an x-ray that revealed the last meal of an ammonite. Coooool.
So long as it’s not an Octoceratops.
Those use their advanced Octagon Ninja skills to destroy shrew-like pre-human ancestors.
Although I think one joined the Green Lantern Corps at one point.
Any and all dinosaur news is good news. Because, you know, dinosaurs are rad!