Relationships are tricky but if there's ever a way to make them last, it's making sure that partners know they are appreciated.
Caleb Brown works with the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Canada, He was the lead author for a study recently published in the journal Current Biology. Before research work can be published, it goes through many things and these many things take their toll on researchers. As part of professional courtesy (and being an overall decent human being), researchers take the time to acknowledge those who have helped them along the way.
Brown and his colleagues are no different, so they took care to give a rundown of the people they wanted to thank for helping out on "A New Horned Dinosaur Reveals Convergent Evolution in Cranial Ornamentation in Ceratopsidae." To particularly show how supportive she's been of his endeavors, Brown included a special shout-out to his girlfriend:
"C. M. B. would specifically like to highlight the ongoing and unwavering support of Lorna O'Brien. Lorna, will you marry me?"
Giving credit where credit is due is important to scientists. O'Brien saw a preprint of the study and said yes.
Brown's original way of proposing gave their study a lot of buzz, but he said he hopes his romantic gesture does not overshadow their discovery.
"I never expected it to get this much attention," he added. Brown shared that he was simply looking for a unique and spontaneous way to propose to O'Brien, feeling that including the proposal in the study would be a great way to immortalize the moment.
The Regaliceratops peterhewsi central to the study Brown and his colleagues carried out is nicknamed "Hellboy" because of the trouble it gave the researchers during extraction. At the same time, the horned dinosaur's appearance featured a vague resemblance to the comic book character — so the nickname was perfect.
Belonging to a group of dinosaurs called Chasmosaurine, the Regaliceratops has a large, elaborate neck frill. The discovered fossils, however, had a neck frill larger and more elaborate than usual, which made it look more similar to Centrosaurines, a group of horned dinosaurs that roamed the earth two million years before the Chasmosaurines.
The Regaliceratops appears to be wearing a crown, which inspired half of its scientific name. As for "Peterhewsi," it is a means of honoring Peter Hews, the geologist who discovered the dinosaur's fossil in 2005.
