VAGACERATOPS

Vagaceratops differs from almost all of its horn-faced relatives by not having any horns on its face. Well, not very impressive ones, anyway. It has a small stump on its snout and two nubbins of bone on its brow where horns would normally be. But its short and wide skull frill with two windows (parietal fenestrae) does sport ten forwards and downwards curving "hornlets" (epoccipitals) in the style of, but more modest than those seen in, Kosmoceratops to whom it is closely related. Unlike Kosmoceratops, however, its current name wasn't its original name.

Vagaceratops was initially identified as the common as muck Chasmosaurus belli in 1958, so lay ignored for many years. Heck, preparation didn't begin until 1980, and it was done in instalments until completely free of fossil-obscuring matrix in 2003, by which point it had already been sporting a shiny new name—Chasmosaurus irvinensis—for two years, courtesy of Robert Holmes. Holmes returned in 2007 to restudy what turned out to be one of the most complete and articulated ceratopsians known, and one which had, unusually, perished in an upright position with both right limbs tucked neatly beneath its torso. This was good news, as it could answer an age-old question of whether ceratopsian dinosaurs held their front legs upright like an elephant's or bent outwards at the knees like a crocodile's. Or, at least, that was the hope. The conclusion, however, was that ceratopsian forelimbs were neither one nor the other but somewhere in between and have no comparison amongst extant critters.

As well as a lack of horns, Chasmosaurus irvinensis had a wider snout, a more modest frill, and a broader chest than any known specimen of Chasmosaurus, so Sampson et al. renamed it Vagaceratops in 2010. Unusual pathologies of its vertebrae and hands suggest Vagaceratops was very old and had perhaps been taken quietly by Father Time as it slept or was unable to move. It seems even ceratopsian pensioners could succumb to arthritis.