King of Hogwarts
A NEW species of dinosaur has been named in honour of J.K. Rowling and her Harry Potter books.
The 66 million-year-old dragon-like monster has been given the title Dracorex hogwartsia because it resembles the kind of fantastical creature encountered by the teenage wizard. The nearly complete skull of the previously unknown dinosaur was found by three friends during a fossil-collecting trip in Albuquerque in the US.
Paleontologist Robert Bakker said the beast, now on display at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis, would not look out of place in a Potter book: "(It) carried an armour-plated head of almost magical configuration, covered with knobs and spikes, horns and crests. I was staring at the skull last summer and the name just popped into my head, hogwartsia."
The newly described horny-headed dinosaur Dracorex hogwartsia lived just a million years short of the extinction of all dinosaurs. But its flat, almost storybook-style dragon head has overturned everything paleontologists thought they knew about the dome-head dinos called pachycephalosaurs.
"What you knew about pachycephalosaurs -- you can chuck it," said Spencer Lucas, curator of paleontology at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History.
Dracorex hogwartsia was unearthed in 2003 in the Hell Creek Formation of South Dakota by three amateur fossil hunters working in cooperation with the Children's Museum of Indianapolis. But it wasn't until it was at the museum, while the fossil was being carefully prepared, that renowned dinosaur researcher Robert Bakker happened to catch sight of it while visiting. Bakker then recruited pachycerphalosaurs expert Sullivan and other paleontologists to take a closer look.
"Dracorex hogwartsia is a rather fantastic new dinosaur," affirmed paleontologist Robert Sullivan of the State Museum of Pennsylvania.
As for how it got its name? A group of children at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis drew the connection to the fanciful school of witchcraft that the famous fictional wizard Harry Potter attends and came up with the name hogwartsia..
"It's a very dragon-like looking dinosaur," said Sullivan.
Rowling says, "The naming of Dracorex hogwartsia is easily the most unexpected honor to have come my way since the publication of the 'Harry Potter' books.
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