New 11-foot-long, horned dinosaur discovered in southwestern U.S.

Credit: DaytonDailyNews

A new, 11-foot-long, horned dinosaur was discovered in the southwestern United States from bones collected 20 years ago, according to paleontologists at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science.

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The new ceratopsid, which is from the same genus as the more well-known triceratop, weighed 1,500 pounds and walked the Earth 73 million years ago, scientists said.

The bones of the new dinosaur were discovered in rocks along what was once a large lake southeast of Tucson, Arizona, dating to the late Cretaceous Period.

Museum officials said in a press release that the new dinosaur is one of the few named for Arizona.

Its official name is Crittendenceratops krzyzanowskii. Crittendenceratops after the rock formation where the bones were found called the Fort Crittenden Formation, a geological formation in southeast Arizona. The late Stan Krzyzanowski was the researcher at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science who discovered the bones.

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