"Big Nosed Horn Face"

Science Fridays 

Post # 82  

      How would you like to go around with that for a name?  "Hey, Big Nosed Horn Face, I need to borrow a five spot."  It sounds like one of those horrible names in the genealogy list at the beginning of Groenlendirssaga.  In that old list of people from the Norse colony in Greenland, two that stand out to me are Aud the Mindful, and Kettil Flat-nose.  I wouldn't want to go around with names like that either.  Then of course there's that other viking, Ivar the Boneless.  His very name floods my otherwise acceptably normal brain with very weird images. 
      Big Nosed Horn Face wasn't a Viking though.  It was a dinosaur - a recently discovered/uncovered dinosaur found in the fossil fields of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah.  He wouldn't have had to put up with a name like that then, because we wouldn't have been around to call him that.  But, if we were, we wouldn't be asking him to loan us a fiver.  It might be more on the lines with "Hey Big Nosed Horn Face, go get me that bus" or if he was in redneck territory, it would be more like "Wontcha see if you can go tip that bus over."   

      Big Nosed Horn Face is the English translation of its scientific and official name, Nasutoceratops titusi.  The second part of the name, "titusi" is in honor of Alan Titus, a palaeontologist at Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and long time supporter of research at the site. 
      The Nasutoceratops lived in the late Cretaceous on Laramidia.  Laramidia was an ancient landmass in what is now north western North America.  Laramidia was a swampy, subtropical island that took up almost a third of the present day North America.  It was related to the Triceratops, and was about half the size of the much larger "Three Horned Face."  It was about 15 feet long and weighed in at about two and a half tons.  That is still not small. 
      Like all of the Ceratopsians, Nasutoceratops was a herbivore.  It had a frilly plate extending out of its head over the back of its neck.  This plate wasn't very good for protection though, because it had two large openings in it.  It was more like the framework for a plate or shield, and wouldn't have been very good against an "ash rain" of a spear and arrow volley thrown by vikings such as Kettil Flat-nose, and Ivar the Boneless.  Its plate was most likely used for display during mating rituals, and the skin in the plate openings would be flushed with blood to change its colors. 
      The astonishing difference between the Nasutoceratops and his other "horned face" relatives is the size of its nose.  Compared to the rest of it body that nose was huge. The description of Naustoceratops was published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, just a couple of days ago, on July 17. 

      The researchers still don't have a clear explanation for the size of its big nose.  It is not for enhanced smell, as the nasal channels are not laid out for olfactory acuteness.  This was confirmed by Scott Sampson, of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, the lead author in the study.  My educated guess on the reason for it would be to augment the sound of its call.