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A newly-discovered dinosaur with a heart-shaped frill around its head got its name from a combination of its flamboyant noggin and a round of beers.
The now officially-named Mojoceratops was discovered and named by paleontologist Nicholas Longrich, a postdoctoral associate at Yale University. Longrich had wanted a moniker that matched the outlandish head of the beast, and he came up with it over a few beers one night with fellow paleontologists.
"It was just a joke, but then everyone stopped and looked at each other and said, ‘Wait — that actually sounds cool,'" Longrich said. "I tried to come up with serious names after that, but Mojoceratops just sort of stuck."
The dinosaur is one of more than a dozen species belonging to the chasmosaurine ceratopsid family, which are defined by elaborate frills on their skulls.
A plant eater about the size of a hippopotamus, Mojoceratops appeared about 75 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous — 10 million years earlier than its well-known cousin, the Triceratops.
The species, which is related to another dinosaur in Texas, is found only in Canada's Alberta and Saskatchewan provinces and was short-lived, having survived for only about one million years.
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Mojoceratops What a name! Just goes to show what a couple of beers can do to a person.
