Paleontologists have discovered a new species of dinosaur that appears to have worn a strange hairstyle. As their research progressed, scholars discovered that dinosaurs had elaborate ornaments on their heads.
Recently, a dinosaur species was found to have a dome head, further confirming the research that has been done.
A dinosaur with a strange hairstyle was discovered; it is a pachycephalosaurus.
According to paleontologists, the dinosaur with the strange hairstyle would be a species of pachycephalosaur, dating back 68 million years.
Mark Goodwin of the University of California and John “Jack” Horner of Chapman University in Orange County made this finding.
They claim that the hairstyle is a structure made of keratin, a material found in fingernails.
And that it was most likely used as a visual signal or traffic light to communicate with other specimens of its kind.
Pachycephalosaurs existed during the Cretaceous period and were herbivorous dinosaurs with a small and even medium sizes with a length of 1 to 4.5 meters.
In addition to the fact that they walked on two legs and had a long, stiff tail that helped them maintain their posture.
How paleontologists discovered dinosaurs with strange hairstyles
The new dinosaur species with a strange hairstyle described by paleontologists is based on a partial skull of a pachycephalosaur.
The strange fossil was unearthed in 2011 in the Hell Creek Formation in Montana, where the Upper Cretaceous is studied, and many fossils have been collected.
CT scans and microscopic analysis of slices through the fossilized dome determined that the dinosaur had a skull with keratin bristles.
These specialists stated that the covering or hairstyle served for social and biological interactions.
They also mentioned that the partial skull they found had a cut in the vertex but had healed thanks to new bone tissue growth.
It should be noted that the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology described the pachycephalosaur.
The research team named this new species Platytholus clemensi in honor of the late Berkeley paleontologist William Clemens.
Respected professionals collected fossils in the Hell Creek Formation, where they found this dinosaur.