Sampson, who had overseen much of the early research at the former monument, expressed fear that such a move would threaten further discoveries. Media outlets stressed the importance of the area's fossil discoveries—including more than 25 new taxa—while some highlighted "Kosmoceratops" as one of the more significant finds. The US government was subsequently sued by a group of scientists, environmentalists, and Native Americans; the lawsuit is ongoing. A partial skull (cataloged as CMN 8801) discovered in 1928 by fossil collector Charles M. Sternberg in the Dinosaur Park Formation of Alberta, Canada, was assigned to "Chasmosaurus russelli" in 1940, but only to "Chasmosaurus" in 1995, as the lack of a neck frill prevented the skull from being identified as a particular species. In 2014 (and in 2015, in an article that failed peer review), paleontologist Nicholas R. Longrich considered the skull similar to "Kosmoceratops" in features of the snout but differing in the shape of the naris and nasal horn. He therefore proposed that it was a species of "Kosmoceratops" other than "K. richardsoni" and assigned it to "K." sp. (of uncertain species). He found it premature to name the species because a neck frill is usually necessary to diagnose a ceratopsid species, and only one skull had been described so far, making it difficult to determine the features and range of variation of the species. In 2016, paleontologist James A. Campbell and colleagues did not support the assignment of specimen CMN 8801 to "Kosmoceratops", as they found the features this was based on to be either influenced by taphonomy (changes occurring during decay and fossilization) or to fall within the variation among "Chasmosaurus" specimens (though they did not assign it to a particular species in the genus). In 2020, paleontologists Denver W. Fowler and Elizabeth A. Freedman Fowler stated that CMN 8801 may be more reliably assigned when better understanding of the anatomy in the front part of chasmosaurine skulls is reached. "Kosmoceratops" is estimated to have been long and to have weighed . As a ceratopsid, it would have been a quadruped with a heavily constructed skeleton, a large pelvis, and a relatively shortened tail. It had long main tooth rows which formed complex slicing dental batteries containing hundreds of teeth behind an edentulous (toothless) beak.