It’s summer, and the latest installment of the Jurassic Park franchise is in theaters. So, of course, we’re going to talk about dinosaurs.

Tyrannosaurus rex was the scariest. And sauropods were the biggest.

But horned dinosaurs were the showiest.

Their heads bristled with wicked spikes, menacing hooks and enormous, fan-like frills. Though all this gaudy ornamentation looked fearsome, you might be surprised to learn that its main purpose probably wasn’t for defense.

There’s lots more interesting stuff to find out about horned dinosaurs, or ceratopsians, as they’re formally known. And there’s no one better to help us understand their crazy appearance and lifestyles than paleontologist Dr. Michael Ryan, the former Cleveland Museum of Natural History’s Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology.

Dr. Ryan is one of the world’s leading dinosaur researchers, specializing in horned dinosaurs. He’s a native of Canada, as you’ll hear by his accent, and he spends each summer scouring the badlands of Southern Alberta for dinosaur fossils. He’s a prolific identifier of new species, and has come up with some memorable names for his discoveries, including Medusaceratops, which he’ll talk about.

It had a face only another horned dinosaur could love.

Dr. Ryan is co-creator of the Southern Alberta Dinosaur Project. That’s a collaboration among the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum and the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology to investigate the evolution of Late Cretaceous dinosaurs and other fauna in what’s now southwestern Canada. In addition to his work there, Dr. Ryan has conducted field research in Mongolia and Greenland.

He’ll tell us about exploring dinosaur mass graveyards, about how horned dinosaurs’ bodies changed as they matured, about the impact of fossil poaching, and about a unique fossil-hunting opportunity here in Cleveland later this summer that doesn’t involve dinosaurs, but does involve a big, fearsome prehistoric creature.

Intrigued? Let’s get on with the show.