Styracosaurus

Styracosaurus was a plant-eating dinosaur with a striking arrangement of long spikes around its neck frill and a massive horn on its nose.

We think these spikes may have been used to defend against predators because it probably couldn't outrun them. This dinosaur walked on four legs and was almost certainly very slow.

Experts think Styracosaurus - like many other horned dinosaurs - was probably a herd animal. The discovery of several Styracosaurus specimens together in one bone bed suggests they lived and died together.

Styracosaurus and Triceratops were both ceratopsid dinosaurs, which all had neck frills and facial horns.

There were two types of ceratopsids - centrosaurines and chasmosaurines.

Styracosaurus was a centrosaurine, with a long nose horn and no brow horns. Triceratops was a chasmosaurine - these dinosaurs tended to have short nose horns and prominent brow horns.

At 5.5 metres long and 2,700 kilogrammes in weight, Styracosaurus was a hefty animal. But some of its relatives were much larger.

Other ceratopsid dinosaurs such as Pentaceratops and Torosaurus could reach much bigger sizes.

It's hard to say for sure, but the largest ceratopsid might have been Triceratops, at around nine metres long.

The first ever Styracosaurus fossils were found in 1913 at a location in Alberta, Canada. Today, it's known as Dinosaur Provincial Park.

This world-famous fossil site has UNESCO World Heritage status due to the large numbers of high-quality dinosaur remains found there.

In 1915, an American fossil-hunting group visited the park and found another Styracosaurus skeleton. This one was almost complete.

Then in 1935, a group of Canadian scientists revisited the site of the original Styracosaurus find and came across even more fossils.

The number of long horns around Styracosaurus' frill seems to have varied between individuals.

Some Styracosaurus skulls show six long frill spikes, whereas others show eight.

Additional smaller bumps and knobs were present around the back edge of the frill of some Styracosaurus individuals, but not all.

Styracosaurus was a plant-eating dinosaur. It had a parrot-like beak, as well as rows of teeth that were continuously replaced - ideal for feeding on tough material. The downward angle of its head and mouth probably meant it mostly ate low-growing vegetation.

It's possible Styracosaurus used its horns and beak to knock down taller plants to make them easier to reach.

Despite being a reasonable size with fearsome-looking horns, Styracosaurus would have been prey for large meat-eating dinosaurs.

We don't have any direct evidence of a particular carnivore attacking Styracosaurus. But we know Styracosaurus lived alongside some very big predators, such as Daspletosaurus. This relative of Tyrannosaurus would have had the size and strength to take on a multi-horned ceratopsid.