July 22 , 2016

by Sarah Lawrynui

'Beautiful' skull likely bridges historical gap in horned-dinosaur evolution, palaeontologist says

A new species of dinosaur is so recently discovered it doesn't even have a name yet — so the fresh specimen from Alberta's Dinosaur Provincial Park is simply known as Hannah, for now.

The species is in the Ceratopsian family — think Cera for those of us who only know dinosaurs from The Land Before Time — and it potentially bridges the evolutionary gap between the Centrosaurus and the Styracosaurus.

There's still some work to be done, however, to confirm its distinct place in the evolutionary tree.

"I'm incredibly thrilled, but discovering it in the field, it's a really slow burn," Persons said.

The discovery of the new species was made over the course of days while they extracted the animal's skull last summer.

Evolution would have continued to change the horns of dinosaurs over time, and that's likely what is being seen here with Hannah.

Where she was found in the earth's surface is important, because the Centrosaurus has been found in deeper layers of earth, while the Styracosaurus has been found in higher strata.

Hannah was found in between the two, which shows it likely bridges an evolutionary gap between the two species.

As it turns out, Hannah's skeleton is nearly complete. The team will return again next summer to complete the dig.

For every hour spent in the field, another 10 hours will be spent in the lab doing analysis, Persons said. That will be where they confirm and document this new species.

"There's still a lot of the work that needs to be done, even though we've gotten a lot of the bones up and out of the field, we still have to do a lot of the very close cleaning and preparation work back at the laboratory," Persons said.

"Once that's done, we can take the detailed measurements and really start to say for sure what's going on."

Hannah was found horn first, the tip peeking out of the dirt in Alberta's Badlands.

Since Persons was the one to find her, he was the one who earned the right to give her the nickname Hannah, inspired by his beloved dog, who sometimes helps on digs, Persons said.