An armored dinosaur recently discovered in New Mexico is believed to be related to a species from Alberta, Canada.
Between 76 and 66 million years ago Alberta was host to about five species of ankylosaurid (armored) dinosaurs, but fewer are known from North America. The species Ziapelta sanjuanensis was discovered in the Bisti/De-na-zin Wilderness area of New Mexico by a team from the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science and the State Museum of Pennsylvania, the University of Alberta reported.
"Bob Sullivan, who discovered the specimen, showed us pictures, and we were really excited by both its familiarity and its distinctiveness-we were pretty sure right away we were dealing with a new species that was closely related to the ankylosaurs we find in Alberta," recent Ph.D. graduate Victoria Arbour said.
The dinosaur had tall spikes jutting from a bone above its neck and a skull that differentiates it from other ankylosaurs.
"The horns on the back of the skull are thick and curve downwards, and the snout has a mixture of flat and bumpy scales - an unusual feature for an ankylosaurid," Arbour said. "There's also a distinctive large triangular scale on the snout, where many other ankylosaurids have a hexagonal scale."
The dinosaur existed during the Late Cretaceous. It dwelled on the coast of an inland sea serpeating North America into two pieces. In the past, Ankylosaur fossils have been found in rocky formations of Southern Alberta, but none have been seen in the lower Horseshoe Canyon Formation, leaving a gap in the fossil record.
"The rocks in New Mexico fill in this gap in time, and that's where Ziapelta occurs," Arbour said. "Could Ziapelta have lived in Alberta, in the gap where we haven't found any ankylosaur fossils yet? It's possible, but in recent years there has also been increasing evidence that the dinosaurs from the southern part of North America-New Mexico, Texas and Utah, for example - are distinct from their northern neighbours in Alberta."
The new species was described in a recent edition of the journal PLOS ONE.
