[1] In 2010, Canadian fossil hunter Wendy Sloboda found a centrosaurine bonebed in the Pinhorn Provincial Grazing Reserve south of the Milk River, County of Forty Mile No.

[2] The discovery of this new horned dinosaur species - starting from the ground in Alberta, through scientific study and restoration, all the way to its eventual reconstruction and public display in The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) - was captured in the HISTORY series and companion website Dino Hunt Canada.

The bones comprise elements from the skull, lower jaws, vertebral column, shoulder girdle, pelvis and limbs.

[4] The describing authors indicated two unique traits, or autapomorphies: On the rear rim of the neck frill, the second and third epiparietals, which are skin ossifications attached to the rim, have a wide base, are vertically thick and curve obliquely upwards to the front, overhanging the rear and outer side branches of the parietal bone.

[1] Wendiceratops is further distinguished by the presence of an erect nose horn, and the lack of a vertical spike on the rear frill.

From the position of the fourth, frontmost, episquamosal a relatively high ridge was running to the inside, adorned with three substantial bumps.

[1] Whereas centrosaurine species each possessed a unique pattern of frill ornamentation, their postcranial skeleton, the parts of the body behind the skull, was very conservative, i.e. it showed little variation.

Their nevertheless in general rather basal position is in accordance with the high absolute age of Wendiceratops living only a million years later than the oldest known centrosaurines Xenoceratops and Diabloceratops.

[1] The latest phylogenetic analysis including Wendiceratops is reproduced below, after Chiba et al. (2017):[5] Diabloceratops eatoni Machairoceratops cronusi Avaceratops lammersi (ANSP 15800)

Nasutoceratops titusi Malta new taxon Xenoceratops foremostensis Sinoceratops zhuchengensis Wendiceratops pinhornensis Albertaceratops nesmoi Medusaceratops lokii Rubeosaurus ovatus Styracosaurus albertensis Coronosaurus brinkmani Centrosaurus apertus Spinops sternbergorum Einiosaurus procurvicornis Achelousaurus horneri Pachyrhinosaurus canadensis Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai Pachyrhinosaurus perotorum The nose horn of Wendiceratops, erect but probably of moderate size, was by the describing authors seen as a transition between the low horns of earlier forms like Diabloceratops, Nasutoceratops and Albertaceratops and the much taller horns of derived centrosaurines such as Coronosaurus, Centrosaurus and Styracosaurus.

Remarkably, the curled epiparietals of Wendiceratops resemble the osteoderms of two chasmosaurines: Vagaceratops and Kosmoceratops, though they differ from the latter in their saddle-shaped interspaces.

[1] Being found in the Oldman Formation, Wendiceratops shared its habitat with other dinosaurs such as Daspletosaurus, Paronychodon, Troodon, Albertaceratops, and Parasaurolophus.

The authors pointed out that after the discovery of Wendiceratops, no less than five ceratopsids are known from the lower Oldman or coeval North-American formations, in addition to Albertaceratops also Judiceratops, Medusaceratops and Avaceratops.