Regaliceratops

Regaliceratops Temporal range: Late Cretaceous,
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Order:	†Ornithischia
Family:	†Ceratopsidae
Subfamily:	†Chasmosaurinae
Tribe:	†Triceratopsini
Genus:	†Regaliceratops Brown & Henderson, 2015
Type species
†Regaliceratops peterhewsi Brown & Henderson, 2015

Regaliceratops is a genus of herbivorous ceratopsid dinosaur that lived during the late Cretaceous period, about 68 million years ago (Mya) in what is now Canada.

Closely related to Triceratops, Regaliceratops was named for its plated frill, which its describers thought looked somewhat like a crown. In 2005, geologist Peter Hews discovered a skull at the Oldman River in Alberta. The fossil was secured by a team of the Royal Tyrrell Museum. The specimen was given the nickname "Hellboy" for its horns and the difficulty of removing it from the matrix.

In 2015, Caleb Marshall Brown and Donald Henderson named and described the type species Regaliceratops peterhewsi. The generic name combines Latin regalis, "royal", a reference to both the crown-shaped neck shield and the "Royal" Tyrrell, with a Greek keras, "horn", and ops, "face". The specific name honours Hews.

The holotype, TMP 2005.055.0001, was found in a layer of the St. Mary River Formation dating from the middle Maastrichtian, about 68 million years old. It consists of a rather complete skull of which the snout bone, the rostral, is lacking. The skull has been deformed by compression and its rear and underside are obscured by matrix.

Regaliceratops was about five metres long, with an estimated weight of 1.5 tonnes.

Skull of Regaliceratops peterhewsi on display at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Alberta, Canada.

See also

• Timeline of ceratopsian research