BISTICERATOPS

After its discovery in 1975 in the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness of northwestern New Mexico, the nearly complete skull of a chasmosaurine ceratopsid languished in museum collections for decades, casually labeled as Pentaceratops. It was a reasonable assumption—both were large, frilled, beaked, and horned herbivores from the same region. However, stratigraphic context told a different story: the fossil hailed from the Farmington Member of the Kirtland Formation, dating to around 74 million years ago—making it approximately two million years younger than the last known Pentaceratops.

The taxonomic twist deepened when the name Bisticeratops froeseorum—honouring both its geographic origin and the band Tangerine Dream’s Edgar and Jerome Froese—was inadvertently leaked in an online publication describing another ceratopsian by the same authors. Though the name appeared prematurely, the formal description followed later in 2022, cementing Bisticeratops as a distinct critter, distinguished by unique features of its snout, upper jaw, beak, and nostril position.

But Bisticeratops wasn’t just misidentified—it was battle-worn. Its skull bears tyrannosaurid bite marks, some of which had time to heal, and others which had not. That haunting detail suggests a dramatic life story: Bisticeratops survived an earlier attack, long enough to mend its wounds, but may have been left weakened and vulnerable, and was perhaps targeted again—fatally—as an easier meal.