Regaliceratops peterhewsi is a ceratopsian from the Triceratopsini family. It is a stocky quadruped with a large head, beaked mouth, three horns (the nose horn longer than the ones above the eyes), and a small frill with large elaborate spikes.
Regaliceratops would have lived in the Late Cretaceous swamps or floodplains of what is now Southern Alberta, Canada. Generally, ceratopsians (horn-faced dinosaurs) are split into two groups: chamosaurines and centrosaurines. Chasmosaurines had small nose horns, large eye horns, and simple frills with smooth or scalloped edges. Centrosaurines had large nose horns, small eye horns, and elaborate frills with spikes or spades. Regaliceratops is unique in that it shares the horns and frill spikes of as centrosaur, but is classified as a chasmosaur because of the small frill size and general similarity to chasmosaurs. Since centrosaurs went extinct by the time of this dinosaur, it is thought that it evolved their traits for its own evolutionary needs.
The holotype consists of an almost complete skull, which was discovered in 2005 by Canadian geologist Peter Hews while on a fishing trip along the Oldman River in Southern Alberta. The skull was encased in very hard rock on a cliff face about a metre (3 feet) above the waterline. During excavation, no debris was allowed to fall into the river, as it is the habitat of Alberta's provincial fish (the bull trout). Because of these factors, excavation took years, and the description was only completed in 2015. Because of these terrible excavation conditions, the specimen was nicknamed 'Hellboy'.
Regaliceratops comes from the Greek "regalis" meaning "royal", and Latin "ceratops" meaning "horned face". Peterhewsi refers to Peter Hews, the geologist who discovered the specimen.
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