Jun 19, 2014 11:58 AM EDT By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

Scientists have identified a new dinosaur and it appears to be closely related to the Triceratops though it has some key physical differences.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the Mercuriceratops gemini weighed some two tons, which would make it half the size of a Triceratops. The paleontologists said the Mercuriceratops had a bony frill atop its head with wing-like protrusions on either side.

The researchers published their work in the journal Naturwissenschaften.

"We would never have predicted this from our experience with working on horned dinosaurs," study lead author Michael Ryan, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, told the Times. "It's modifying an element of the skull that's never been modified before."

The paleontologists studied two different fossil samples of the Mercuriceratops, one found in Montana and one in Dinosaur Provincial Park in Alberta, Canada. The similarity of these fossils discovered so far apart was an early indication that the yet-unidentified dinosaur was part of a larger family. Sometimes when a new fossil is discovered, the sample can be a slight variation of a dinosaur species and not a new creature altogether.

"Mercuriceratops took a unique evolutionary path that shaped the large frill on the back of its skull into protruding wings like the decorative fins on classic 1950s cars.  It definitively would have stood out from the herd during the Late Cretaceous," Ryan said in a press release.  "Horned dinosaurs in North America used their elaborate skull ornamentation to identify each other and to attract mates-not just for protection from predators. The wing-like protrusions on the sides of its frill may have offered male Mercuriceratops a competitive advantage in attracting mates."

The paleontologists named the new dinosaur after Mercury, who in Greek mythology was a messenger with two wings atop his head. Mercuriceratops was most likely a plant-eater with a beak-shaped mouth, like its cousin, and lived during some 77 million years ago during the Cretaceous period.

Susan Owen-Kagen, a preparatory at the University of Alberta, collected the sample discovered in the Dinosaur Park. But the Montana sample was found on private property, so the Royal Ontario Museum moved to acquire the fossil. Later, Owen-Kagen and Ryan met to compare their findings.

"Susan showed me her specimen during one of my trips to Alberta," Ryan said in the relase. "I instantly recognized it as being from the same type of dinosaur that the Royal Ontario Museum had from Montana."

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