Michelle Stocker, a paleontologist at Virginia Tech, led a multi-institutional team that discovered a new species of reptile that predates dinosaurs, but had the classic dinosaur-look.
The preserved remains of Triopticus (left) show the evolution of a thickened domed skull in the Triassic Period, 150 million years before the evolution of the famous dome-headed pachycephalosaur dinosaurs, such as Stegoceras (right). The background image shows the field site in Texas where Works Progress Administration crews in 1940 found the curious fossils of Triopticus.