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We haven’t seen a dinosaur like this before. The newly discovered species had a brush on its head
A dinosaur fossil with an unusual ornament on its head has been found in Montana. It is a new species of herbivorous pachycephalosaur. Scientists speculate that the animal had a reinforced dome on the top of its skull covered with bristles. It may have resembled a brush.
By now we’re used to dinosaurs looking really unusual. Triceratops had three horns on its head and a huge bony orifice around its neck. Ankylosaurs wore a mace at the end of their tails. Many hadrosaurs were decorated with a string of bony outgrowths running along the spine. Stegosaurids looked like a large spiny spike — their backs were covered with vertically standing deltoid plates.
However, it is possible that we still miss many details about the appearance of dinosaurs. And not just their coloration. Scientists have just described a new species of pachycephalosaurus. Many years of study of its skull indicate that the animal had vertically standing keratin bristles on its head.
According to the researchers, such an ornament was needed by the dinosaur for visual communication. Other representatives of the species could draw conclusions based on it, for example, about the health of the animal. Or about its readiness for reproduction.
