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A newly discovered armored fossil from New Mexico has just been confirmed as a new species in the ankylosaurid dinosaur family. Researchers from Alberta now suspect that the armored giant is not only related to its cousins up north, but perhaps even made Alberta its stomping grounds as well.

From 76 to 66 million years ago, Alberta was home to at least five species of ankylosaurid dinosaurs including the iconic club-tailed armored giant, the Ankylosaurus.

When University of Alberta researchers Victoria Arbour and Michael Burns were introduced to the new armored dinosaur, discovered three years ago in the Bisti/De-na-zin Wilderness area of New Mexico, they knew they were looking at a new addition to the textbooks.

"Bob Sullivan, who discovered the specimen, showed us pictures, and we were really excited by both its familiarity and its distinctiveness - we were pretty sure right away we were dealing with a new species that was closely related to the ankylosaurs we find in Alberta," Arbour said in a statement.

"The horns on the back of the skull are thick and curve downwards, and the snout has a mixture of flat and bumpy scales - an unusual feature for an ankylosaurid," she added. "There's also a distinctive large triangular scale on the snout, where many other ankylosaurids have a hexagonal scale."

These distinct differences, plus the location of the fossils, told researchers that they had a new species on their hands. After an in-depth study of the fossil, as desribed in a recent publication of the journal PLOS ONE, it was determined that the species, Ziapelta sanjuanensis, hails from the Late Cretaceous. During this period a vast inland sea divided North America in two, and Alberta and New Mexico both boasted sandy beach-like territory.

Ankylosaurus fossils are reportedly common in southern Alberta, but none have been found further south than in an area called the Horseshoe Canyon Formation.

Arbour and Burns now suspect that they will find Ziapelta fossils there, and will be "on the lookout" for such fossils in the future.