IMPORTANT NOTICE: Price above only reflects Deposit/Holding Fee and is non-refundable; Full price is reflected under “Acquire Specimen.” If you have any questions, please consult our fossil expert prior to purchase.

Acquire specimen:
$1,600,000 Full Rights to Specimen
$1,100,000 TPI Retains Casting Rights

($1,000,000 - Non-Refundable Deposit to Hold Item; Applied to final price)

HISTORY
Kevin is a new chasmosaurine from the Judith River formation of Montana. The specimen consists primarily of skull material with limited post-cranial.

Analysis by Anthony Maltese and Dr. Joe Sertich places this in its own new position in the clade.

Anthony Maltese narrative:
In early 2019 after preparation of the specimen, Dr. Joe Sertich and I used a cast copy of the Kevin skull elements to try and determine where it lies on the ceratopsian family tree. In order to do this, we used Dr. Caleb Brown’s published character matrix since it used a manageable number of characters (a little over 100, as opposed to some with 4-600). From basic observations it was clear that Kevin belonged on the chasmosaurine side of the ceretopsian tree rather than the centrosaurines. Distinctive elements such as the tall unfused nasal, with its facet for a nose horn ossification, its slender parietal, and the shape of the predentary helped in placing it close to Chasmosaurus, which had never been discovered in the United States. The things that tended to differentiate Kevin from other known Chasmosaurus and Mojoceratops specimens were the very high degree of ornamentation on the lower jaws, small epijugals and most importantly the braincase. This element is well preserved with a portion of the anterior parietal fused to it. The orientation of the braincase, using the occipital condyle as a reference is extremely tall and vertical, forcing the parietal to take a very steep upwards trajectory giving Kevin a distinctive frill profile. Lastly the massive orbital horncores with their oval cross section also differed from known Chasmosaurus-like specimens. Stratigraphy can also be useful for taxonomy and though dipping severely to the north, the site can be walked to the Judith River/Bearpaw contact on the other side of the ridge giving us strong indications that Kevin is from the Coal Ridge member of the Judith River Formation, with an age of approximately 75.5 million years. There is currently no match with Kevin’s morphology with other chasmosaurines of the same age.

FAST FACTS

• This is likely a new species of ceratopsian dinosaur and may even be a new genus.

• Both brow horns are in amazing shape

• The well-preserved braincase has a sharp swoop shape on the top which means the frill went almost straight vertical. It’s a weird looking frill on a very cool dinosaur!

Price Below only reflects Deposit/Holding Fee and is non-refundable; Full price is reflected under “Acquire Specimen.” If you have any questions, please consult our fossil expert prior to purchase.