'Big nosed horned face': The literally named and slightly more unusual looking species of dinosaur discovered in Utah

The dinosaur's name translates as "big -nosed horned face"

A new species of dinosaur is been discovered by scientists with an unusually large nose and "exceptionally long horns" .

The Nasutoceratops Titusi, a member of the Triceratops family, would have measured 15 metres in length and would have roamed Earth during the Late Cretaceous period.

The first part of the name, Nasutoceratops, can be translated as the “big-nosed horned face", deliberately chosen by scientists as a reference to the over-sized nose belonging to this species. The second part of the name honors Alan Titus, Monument Paleontologist at Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

The creature was first discovered in the Grand Staircase-Escalante Monument in 2006 and researchers have spent several years preparing and then studying the fossil.

Dr Mark Loewen, who co-authored the study said: “The amazing horns of Nasutoceratops were most likely used as visual signals of dominance and, when that wasn’t enough, as weapons for combatting rivals.”

This animal would have lived in a swampy, subtropical setting on the island continent of western North America, also known as Laramidia 75 million years ago.

Dr Loewen added: “We’re still working to figure out how so many different kinds of giant animals managed to co-exist on such a small landmass.”

During an interview with the BBC, he said that the dinosaur completely blew them away.

“We would never have predicted it would look like this - it is just so outside of the norm for this group of dinosaurs.”

The Nasutoceratops would have weighed in at 2.5 tonnes, but like all members of the Triceratops family, would have been a herbivore.

During the past decade crews from the Natural History Museum of Utah, the Denver Museum of Nature & Science and several other partner institutions have unearthed a new assemblage of more than a dozen dinosaurs.

Their discovery was published in the British Proceedings of the Royal Society B journal.