An article published in the journal “Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology” describes a research on a juvenile Chasmosaurus, one of the rarest discoveries among dinosaurs, occurred in 2010. For the first time a nearly complete skeleton of a young specimen belonging to the ceratopsids family, the same as the more famous Triceratops. These fossils give us an idea about how a Chasmosaurus appeared at a young age.

Chasmosaurus was a herbivorous dinosaur lived in North America in the Late Cretaceous, between 100 and nearly 65 million years ago. It was common in today’s Alberta, in fact it was discovered already in 1898 and the skeleton examined in this study was found in the Canadian state’s Dinosaur Provincial Park.

The juvenile found was about 1,5 meters (about 5 feet) long and if it had survived until adulthood it would’ve become about 5 meters (a little more than 16 feet) long. Probably it was about three years old when it died, perhaps drowning. These fossils are about 75 million years old and luckily remained almost completely intact.

Professor Philip Currie of the University of Alberta and his colleagues examined the skeleton of this juvenile Chasmosaurus. Currie stated that this research has an incredible value for palaeontology but also to understand the history of life, biomass, population structure, growth rates, and changes in the physiology of these animals.

The problem is that without having the skeletons of juveniles, scientists can only speculate that type of data. Getting information about similar species is helpful but juvenile fossils are rarely found so paleontologists have to use a few bones to try to understand the development of whole families of animals.

The possibility to examine the skeleton of a young Chasmosaurus allowed to understand how these animals developed. They have to be cautious because different species could develop differently, the information obtained is useful to better understand the characteristics of the other species of the family of ceratopsids.

The comparison between the juvenile Chasmosaurus and the adult specimens reserved various surprises. The frill in the back of the skull typical of these animals turned out to be not only smaller but also of a different shape in the juvenile. The back of the juvenile’s frill narrows toward the back instead of being broad and squared as in the adults. The juvenile’s frill’s upper part is arched and has a ridge that descends towards the middle of it instead of being flat.

Exactly because this juvenile Chasmosaurus skeleton is very important, Philip Currie has already announced that it will be the subject of further studies. He’ll assign different parts of its body to his students to be studied in detail in the coming years. In the short term, the skull will be CT scanned to examine its brain’s characteristics. These exams will take advantage of the most modern tools to get more information about these ancient animals.