New Popularity

When dinosaurs are discovered and named they are media darlings for, usually, a few months, before their name starts to fall out of headlines and disappear back into the quiet rocks from whence they came (to get a little poetic). As noted, the official paper was released this year that described Nasutoceratops, but the story goes back 7 years to the 2006 unearthing of a nearly complete skull and a rather well preserved post cranial skeleton; "rather well" is a bit of a misnomer when we consider Ceratopsian post cranials as they are not often associated with skulls if they are present at all. The paper and name were known in 2010; editing and peer review, as usual, slowed publication for years. Nasutoceratops, therefore, should have been popular for the past 7 years instead of the last 7 months. Thankfully, though, Dr. Scott Sampson has presented our newest friend here at least once, as seen below, and that gets the name spread around. I predict this will be a much loved dinosaur in the next few years given its interesting anatomy.