Paleo Construction Worker? Ancient Reptile Wore a 'Hard Hat'

Some 230 million years ago, an alligator-size reptile was crawling around what is now Texas with what looked like a hard hat on its head. The ancient reptile, Triopticus primus, had this fashion sense a good 100 million years before pachycephalosaurs emerged on Earth. It's anyone's guess why both T. primus and the pachycephalosaur developed thick, domed skulls, said lead study researcher Michelle Stocker, a vertebrate paleontologist at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, add