A new dinosaur, found in the Rocky Mountain foothills in southeastern Alberta, Canada has been dubbed “Hellboy” by the scientists describing it. The nearly intact skull of the animal represents not only a new type of horned dinosaur but has implications for the evolutionary tree of dinosaurs like Triceratops.

It was originally discovered 10 years ago when Peter Hews found bones sticking out of a cliff near southeastern Albera’s Oldman River. After years of careful examination the long-extinct animal has been described for the first time in the journal Current Biology.

The animal is a close relative of Triceratops but comes from a region where horned dinosaurs haven’t previously been found.

“The specimen comes from a geographic region of Alberta where we have not found horned dinosaurs before, so from the onset we knew it was important. However, it was not until the specimen was being slowly prepared from the rocks in the laboratory that the full anatomy was uncovered, and the bizarre suite of characters revealed. Once it was prepared it was obviously a new species, and an unexpected one at that. Many horned-dinosaur researchers who visited the museum did a double take when they first saw it in the laboratory,” says Dr. Caleb Brown of the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Alberta, Canada in a statement.

According to Brown, the species is so obviously new that you can tell from 100 meters away.

Horned dinosaurs fall into two groups. The Centrosaurines have a large horn over their nose, small horns over their eyes and a short frill. The Chasmosaurines, the group which includes Triceratops, has a long frill, large horns over the eyes and a short horn over the nose.

According to the researchers the new dinosaur, officially Regaliceratops peterhewsi, was distinctive because of the “shield-like” frill on the back of its skull and it’s distinct facial horns. The nose horn is taller than Triceratops and the horns above the eyes are “almost comically small”.

The most distinctive feature is the frill which is described as a “halo of large, pentagonal plates” along with a central spike.

Brown and co-author Donald Henderson the remarkable features have significant implications for the evolution of horned dinosaurs,e marking a convergence of the horned dinosaur groups.

“This new species is a Chasmosaurine, but it has ornamentation more similar to Centrosaurines. It also comes from a time period following the extinction of the Centrosaurines,” said Brown.

While continuing to study the specimen they have the researchers hope to find more examples of Regaliceratops peterhewsi as well as other, previously unknown, horned dinosaurs.

“This discovery also suggests that there are likely more horned dinosaurs out there that we just have not found yet, so we will also be looking for other new species,” says Brown.