A small sheep-sized dinosaur that lived more than 70 million years ago evolved to have a “huge” neck frill as a result of sexual selection, according to scientists.
The protoceratops, a 1.8m-long plant-eating dinosaur that roamed what is now Mongolia’s Gobi Desert, had elaborate bony frills that extended over the neck.
It is thought that the frills may have served to protect the vulnerable neck from predators and helped regulate body temperature but experts now believe it may have had another function: attracting mates.
Sexual selection is the idea that certain traits in animals are favoured by members of the opposite sex, so in time, these characteristics become more dominant in the creatures.