We can’t choose how we’ll be remembered long after we’re gone. This is as apparently true for dinosaurs as it is for humans if we go by the recent discovery of a new species of prehistoric beast whose legacy is a bunch of hairless apes giggling over the fact that it had an absolutely enormous nose.
Brighstoneus simmondsi was an herbivore that weighed roughly 900 kilograms (1,984 pounds) and was around eight meters (26 feet) long. These details, however, are uninteresting in comparison to its distinguishing feature: A face that The Guardian describes as being defined by its “extremely large nose.”
The dinosaur was discovered by Jeremy Lockwood, a retired GP who’s currently working toward a PhD at the University Of Portsmouth. Lockwood was cataloguing iguanodon bones excavated on the Isle Of Wight when “he discovered a specimen with a unique ‘bulbous’ nasal bone.”
Intrigued by this big old honker, Lockwood got to work reconstructing its owner’s skull and found that the animal was not a previously identified species but a new one altogether.
“The number of teeth was a sign,” Lockwood said. “It also had a bulbous nose, whereas the other species have very straight noses.”
A video from the BBC centers on this anatomical feature, too, introducing Brighstoneus by showing a sketch of its goofy face and narrating: “Gnarled, knobbly, and what a nose. This is how the not-very-dainty dino would’ve looked like. And the USP of this VIP? Its bulbous snout.”
In a show of incredible restraint, Lockwood and his colleagues named the species Brighstoneus simmondsi in tribute to the village it was found near (Brighstone) and Keith Simmonds, “an amateur collector” who helped excavate its bones back in the ‘70s. This may not be a very exciting name for the long-extinct dinosaur but it’s far more dignified than just calling the creature Schnozosaurus justlookatthatthingacus.
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[via Boing Boing]
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