Wendiceratops pinhorniensis: Wendy's Horned Dinosaur of Alberta, Canada

The discovery derives from globe-trotting, paleontology-trained photographer Wendy Sloboda recognizing in 2010 the distinct bone texture of an 11.81-inch (30-centimeter) fragment from a horned dinosaur skull amid Milk River-area rocks on the south Canadian side of the province of Alberta’s border with the United States of America at Montana. Artistic reconstructions for in-print and on-line access and a museum model for Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum visitors exist five years later, thanks to three years of digging by teams supervised by species-naming paleontologists David Evans of the Royal Ontario Museum and Michael Ryan of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. They find their basis in 200+ bones from one juvenile and three adults anciently killed by monsoonal floods. 

Scientists give as bio-geographical contemporaries of Wendy’s horned dinosaurs:

• armored dinosaurs (Anklyosauria suborder);
• crocodiles (Crocodylinae subfamily);
• duck-billed dinosaurs (Hadrosauridae family);
• turtles (Testudines order); and
• tyrannosaurs (Tyrannosauroidea superfamily).

But they have non-carnivorous (meat-eating) compilations to offer when reconstructing feeding chains and food webs for Wendy’s horned dinosaurs. It indeed is the species’ leaf-shaped dental formula that defines horned dinosaur diets in the coastal plains alongside ancient Alberta’s interior seaway from the Cretaceous Period’s high-level seas, low-level inland waters, and worldwide warmth of 66,000,000 to 146,000,000 years ago. Head-top, inward-curving frill-bones apparently join forehead- and nose-based, large-sized horns for intra-gender competition and intra-herd communication.

Distinctive face- and head-bones keynote independently similar, subsequent developments in Triceratops of 68,000,000 years ago. 

This oldest known of horned dinosaurs leads the list of Wendy’s discoveries. But previous finds by Wendy still make lists of archaeological and paleontological breakthroughs with:

• dinosaur, skin-impressed footprints near St. Mary’s River in Magrath during 1987;
• excrement of Tyrannosaurus Rex in eastern Saskatchewan during the 1990s;
• fossil of Cretaceous Period-dated turtle and turtle eggs in southern Alberta during the 1990s; and
• legless burrowing lizard from Mongolia’s Cretaceous Period in 2000.

A species being named after a person numbers among science’s expressions of gratitude and honor. Such recognition actually occurs two times already for Wendy since Sloboda’s muddy foot, Barrosopus slobodai, memorializes her fossil footprint discoveries from 2003 in the South American country of Argentina’s Plaza Huincul.

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Wendiceratops pinhornensis skeleton was discovered in Pinhorn Provincial Grazing Reserve in bonebed informally named South Side Ceratopsian bonebed in reference to location south of Milk River.
D.C. Evans and M.J. Ryan, "Cranial Anatomy of Wendiceratops pinhornensis gen. et sp. nov.," PLOS ONE 10(7) July 8, 2015 e0130007, Fig. 1
Yellow line approximates level of bonebed at base of hill; Pinhorn Provincial Grazing Reserve, southeast Alberta, western Canada: David C. Evans and Michael J. Ryan, CC BY 4.0, via PLOS ONE @ https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0130007#pone-0130007-g001; David C. Evans, Michael J. Ryan, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wendiceratops_pinhornensis_holotype_quarry.jpg

Locality map of southern Alberta indicates location of Wendiceratops pinhornensis with star (bottom right).
D.C. Evans and M.J. Ryan, "Cranial Anatomy of Wendiceratops pinhornensis," PLOS ONE 10(7) July 8, 2015 e0130007, Fig. 1: David C. Evans and Michael J. Ryan, CC BY 4.0, via PLOS ONE @ https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0130007#pone-0130007-g001

The Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto currently displays a full-sized Wendiceratops skeleton.
skeletal reconstruction of Wendiceratops pinhornensis, with elements from bonebed indicated in blue
D.C. Evans and M.J. Ryan, "Cranial Anatomy of Wendiceratops pinhornensis," PLOS ONE 10(7) July 8, 2015 e0130007, Fig. 3: David C. Evans and Michael J. Ryan, CC BY 4.0, via PLOS ONE @ https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0130007; Danielle Dufault, Usage restrictions None, via EurekAlert! @ https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/917233 (specific image URL @ https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/776133)

"Wendiceratops pinhornensis, a new horned dinosaur" (1:06)
Uploaded July 8, 2015, by SciNews to YouTube ~ URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EKahAkqyOg

life reconstruction of Wendiceratops pinhornensis; illustrated by Danielle Dufault (born December 13, 1988), in-house paleontological illustrator with the Royal Ontario Museum
Horned dinosaur's genus name honors legendary fossil hunter Wendy Sloboda (born ca. 1970) of Warner, Alberta, an area of abundant prehistoric relics.
D.C. Evans and M.J. Ryan, "Cranial Anatomy of Wendiceratops pinhornensis," PLOS ONE 10(7) July 8, 2015 e0130007, Fig. 16: David C. Evans and Michael J. Ryan, CC BY 4.0, via PLOS ONE @ https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0130007.g016; Danielle Dufault, Usage restrictions, CC BY, via EurekAlert! @ https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/530098 (specific image URL @ https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/567156)

Wendiceratops pinhornensis bones were discovered in rich prehistoric region of Milk River Valley, locale of Sweet Grass Hills' biological hotspot and Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park's aboriginal rock carvings and paintings.
Missouri River tributary Milk River received name from legendary American explorer Meriwether Lewis (August 18, 1774 – October 11, 1809).
Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park with view of Sweet Grass Hills, Milk River Valley, southern Alberta, western Canada: Wheateater, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MilkriverAB.JPG

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