Unearthing Hellboy was no Jurassic lark.

But while the two arduous years spent prying the massive horned dinosaur skull from iron-hard rock on a steep bank of the Oldman River earned the fossil its demonic nickname, it yielded gigantic rewards, said Dr. Caleb Brown, of the Royal Tyrrell Museum.

“The excavation was problematic — the rock it was in was pretty hard, it was at the bottom of the cliff and we couldn’t have any rocks falling into the river,” said Brown referring to the environmental regulations protecting the river’s bull trout.

“But it was a completely unexpected discovery and its location was the first thing that told us it’d be important.”

Normally, such fossils would be found in southeast Alberta and taken a single summer to excavate, said Brown.

A decade ago, geologist Peter Hews came upon the skull that now bears his name — Ragaliceratops peterhewsi — at a popular fishing spot on the river near Pincher Creek.

The Royal Tyrrell team spent 2006-2008 coaxing the 1.6-metre long, 270-kg skull from the block of siltstone — work that ultimately produced some dino revelations.

The fossil’s long nose-horn and radiating-frill shield plate has strengthened the theory such bony formations were for show rather than practical protection, said Brown.

“We understand they were for display, to impress a member of the opposite sex or same sex...the intimidation of rivals,” he said, adding the species hasn’t been found anywhere else.

The find also shows a surprising evolution and variety among such dinosaurs — Triceratops-related Chasmosaurs, said Brown.

“These animals are much more variable — the frills and horns can change much more than we thought,” he said.

“We wouldn’t have thought this animal with this suite of characteristics existed at this time.

“It highlights what we’ve been missing.”

Ragliceratops peterhewsi would have been 5 metres long and weighed in at 1.5 tonnes, with an appetite for hard vegetation, said the paleontologist.

The discovery has attracted considerable international attention and it’s expected to draw big crowds at the Royal Tyrrell Museum, where it went on display Thursday.

“We’ve been looking forward to this for quite a while,” said Brown, who suspects there’s be more of the dinosaur’s fossilized ilk lurking in the vicinity.

And while studying a dinosaur's attractive features, Brown used the work to court one of his museum co-workers by including a wedding proposal at the end of a paper on the dinosaur.

Lorna O'Brien said yes.

bill.kaufmann@sunmedia.ca

on Twitter: @SUNBillKaufmann