The frill has deep arterial grooves on both the upper and the underside. Specimen NMC 8547, on which traditionally descriptions of the postcrania of "Anchiceratops" have been based, has many traits that are unique in the Chasmosaurinae. The vertebral column contains seventy-four vertebrae: ten of the neck, thirteen dorsals, twelve sacrals and thirty-nine caudals. Typically chasmosaurines have twelve dorsals, ten sacrals and up to forty-six tail vertebrae. Mallon presumed that the synsacrum, the fused vertebrae supporting the pelvis, had shifted to the rear. The neck of NMC 8547 is exceptionally long, with four syncervicals, fused anterior cervical vertebrae. Also the pelvis is very long. The tail is short. The forelimbs are very robust, with a large deltopectoral crest on the humerus, indicating a heavy musculature. The first remains of "Anchiceratops" were discovered along the Red Deer River in the Canadian province of Alberta in 1912 by an expedition led by Barnum Brown. The holotype, specimen AMNH 5251, is the back half of a skull, including the long frill, and two other partial skulls, specimens AMNH 5259 (the paratype) and AMNH 5273, were found at the same time, which are now stored in the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. A complete skull designated NMC 8535, was discovered by Charles M. Sternberg at Morrin in 1924, and was described as "A. longirostris" five years later, in 1929. but this species is widely considered a junior synonym of "A. ornatus" today. In total, at least ten incomplete skulls have been recovered. The skulls are different with respect to their proportions (e.g. size of the supraorbital horn cores, the dimensions of the frill) which had led researchers to conclude that the disparity is ontogenetic. The genus name "Anchiceratops", means "near horned face", and is derived from the Greek words "anchi" (αγχι-) meaning "near", "keras" (κερας) meaning "horn", and "ops" (ωψ) meaning "face". "Anchiceratops" was described and named by American paleontologist Barnum Brown, in 1914, as he believed that this dinosaur represented a transitional form closely related to both "Monoclonius" and "Triceratops" and intermediate between them, but closest in the development of the skull frill to the latter, hence the generic name meaning "near "Ceratops"".