A report in the journal Naturwissenschaften has described discovery of a bizarre horned dinosaur, Mercuriceratops gemini, with some seriously weird headgear. A team of paleontologists has discovered that Mercuriceratops is a relative of Triceratops. The name of Mercuriceratops is inspired from Mercury, the Roman messenger God who sported wings on either sides of his helmet.

The researchers believe that Mercuriceratops was a plant-eating dinosaur and had a beak-like mouth. The dinosaur roamed on our planet about 77 million years ago during the late Cretaceous period.

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

The discovery was based on the findings of two separate fragments. One of them was found in north central Montana and the other was discovered in Dinosaur Provincial Park in Canada's Alberta province.

Scientists find it difficult to determine from the discovery of a single fossil whether it is a new species or just a standard variation, or weird mutation, of a known animal. However, this time the two fossils made the researchers believe that they belonged to an undiscovered species. Both the fossils had undiscovered species and were found hundreds of miles apart.

This discovery has made it certain that there are many new species of dinosaurs yet to be found, said co-author Dr. Mark Loewen, research associate at the Natural History Museum of Utah.