[1] In 2000, Bill D. Shipp, a nuclear physicist, bought the Paradise Point Ranch near the town of Winifred, in Fergus County.

At the cost of several hundred thousand dollars, a road was constructed to allow an excavator to remove the overburden covering the skull of the specimen.

[1] They were studied by Christopher Ott at the Weis Earth Science Museum in Menasha to provide a scientific description.

[2] In February 2015, paleontologist Jordan Mallon was asked to cooperate in writing a scientific publication naming the taxon.

[3] Spiclypeus contains a single species, S. shipporum, first described and named in 2016 by Jordan C. Mallon, Christopher J. Ott, Peter L. Larson, Edward M. Iuliano and David C. Evans.

The specific name shipporum honours Dr. Bill and Linda Shipp, the original owners of the type specimen, and their family.

It was collected from the lower Coal Ridge Member of the Campanian Judith River Formation several meters above the mid-Judith discontinuity, which dates it to between 76.24±0.18 and 75.21±0.12 million years ago.

[3] Spiclypeus is unique among Chasmosaurinae in having a wrinkled nose bone contact on the side surface of the rear projection of the premaxilla.

The ascending branch of the praemaxilla has a very rough outer surface, with many deep pits, indicating a strong connection to the nasal bone.

The front episquamosal projects into the jugal notch between the frill and the cheek elements and forms a triangle six to seven centimetres in length.

In Spiclypeus these are very wide osteoderms, connected and fused at their bases to form a continuous bone sheath covering almost the entire rear edge of the frill.

At the wide notch at the centre of the rear frill edge, this sheath curls to the front, overgrowing the transverse parietal bar behind the fenestrae.

[1] Centrosaurinae Utahceratops gettyi Pentaceratops sternbergii Spiclypeus shipporum Kosmoceratops richardsoni Vagaceratops irvinensis Agujaceratops mariscalensis Mojoceratops perifania Chasmosaurus belli Chasmosaurus russelli Coahuilaceratops magnacuerna Anchiceratops ornatus Regaliceratops peterhewsi Arrhinoceratops brachyops Triceratopsini The type specimen of Spiclypeus appears to have sustained a significant infection in its frill, hypothesised by the authors to have been due to an injury inflicted by a rival of its own species.

That the holotype individual had reached a relatively advanced age despite the severe infections, reflects the generally robust ceratopsid build.