Zuniceratops on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
''Zuniceratops'' ('Zuni-horned face') was a
''Zuniceratops'' measured about long. It probably weighed about , making it substantially smaller than most ceratopsids. The skull bears a well-developed pair of brow horns, similar to those of chasmosaurs and primitive centrosaurs, but the nose horn is absent. The brow horns are thought to have grown much larger with age. The snout is long and low, like that of chasmosaurines. The frill was a thin, broad, shield-like structure. It bore a pair of large holes but lacked
''Zuniceratops'' is an example of the evolutionary transition between early ceratopsians and the later, larger ceratopsids that had very large horns and frills. This supports the theory that the lineage of ceratopsian dinosaurs may have been
ceratopsia
Ceratopsia or Ceratopia ( or ; Greek: "horned faces") is a group of herbivorous, beaked dinosaurs that thrived in what are now North America, Europe, and Asia, during the Cretaceous Period, although ancestral forms lived earlier, in the Jurassic. ...
n dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...
from the mid Turonian
The Turonian is, in the ICS' geologic timescale, the second age in the Late Cretaceous Epoch, or a stage in the Upper Cretaceous Series. It spans the time between 93.9 ± 0.8 Ma and 89.8 ± 1 Ma (million years ago). The Turonian is preceded b ...
of the Late Cretaceous
The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of th ...
Period
Period may refer to:
Common uses
* Era, a length or span of time
* Full stop (or period), a punctuation mark
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Period (music), a concept in musical composition
* Periodic sentence (or rhetorical period), a concept ...
of what is now New Mexico
)
, population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano)
, seat = Santa Fe
, LargestCity = Albuquerque
, LargestMetro = Tiguex
, OfficialLang = None
, Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ker ...
, United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. It lived about 10 million years earlier than the more familiar horned Ceratopsidae
Ceratopsidae (sometimes spelled Ceratopidae) is a family of ceratopsian dinosaurs including ''Triceratops'', '' Centrosaurus'', and ''Styracosaurus''. All known species were quadrupedal herbivores from the Upper Cretaceous. All but one species are ...
and provides an important window on their ancestry''.''
Description
''Zuniceratops'' measured about long. It probably weighed about , making it substantially smaller than most ceratopsids. The skull bears a well-developed pair of brow horns, similar to those of chasmosaurs and primitive centrosaurs, but the nose horn is absent. The brow horns are thought to have grown much larger with age. The snout is long and low, like that of chasmosaurines. The frill was a thin, broad, shield-like structure. It bore a pair of large holes but lacked epoccipital
Ceratopsia or Ceratopia ( or ; Ancient Greek, Greek: "horned faces") is a group of herbivore, herbivorous, beaked dinosaurs that thrived in what are now North America, Europe, and Asia, during the Cretaceous Period (geology), Period, although anc ...
bones, as in ''Protoceratops
''Protoceratops'' (; ) is a genus of small protoceratopsid dinosaurs that lived in Asia during the Late Cretaceous, around 75 to 71 million years ago. The genus ''Protoceratops'' includes two species: ''P. andrewsi'' and the larger ''P. hellenik ...
''. Overall, the anatomy is much more primitive than that of the ceratopsids, but more advanced than in protoceratopsids.
Discovery and species
''Zuniceratops'' was discovered in 1996, by eight-year-old Christopher James Wolfe, son ofpaleontologist
Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...
Douglas G. Wolfe
Douglas may refer to:
People
* Douglas (given name)
* Douglas (surname)
Animals
*Douglas (parrot), macaw that starred as the parrot ''Rosalinda'' in Pippi Longstocking
*Douglas the camel, a camel in the Confederate Army in the American Civil W ...
, in the Moreno Hill Formation in west-central New Mexico. One skull and the bones from several individuals have been found. More recently, one bone, believed to be a squamosal The squamosal is a skull bone found in most reptiles, amphibians, and birds. In fishes, it is also called the pterotic bone.
In most tetrapods, the squamosal and quadratojugal bones form the cheek series of the skull. The bone forms an ancestral co ...
, has since been found to be an ischium
The ischium () form ...
of a ''Nothronychus
''Nothronychus'' (meaning "slothful claw") is a genus of therizinosaurid theropod dinosaurs that lived in North America during the Late Cretaceous period. The type species, ''Nothronychus mckinleyi'', was described by James Kirkland and Doug ...
''.
Classification
''Zuniceratops'' is an example of the evolutionary transition between early ceratopsians and the later, larger ceratopsids that had very large horns and frills. This supports the theory that the lineage of ceratopsian dinosaurs may have been North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
n in origin.
Although the first specimen discovered had single-rooted teeth (unusual for ceratopsians), later fossils had double-rooted teeth. This is evidence that the teeth became double-rooted with age. ''Zuniceratops'' was a herbivore
A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically adapted to eating plant material, for example foliage or marine algae, for the main component of its diet. As a result of their plant diet, herbivorous animals typically have mouthpart ...
like other ceratopsians and was probably a herd animal
A herd is a social group of certain animals of the same species, either wild or domestic. The form of collective animal behavior associated with this is called ''herding''. These animals are known as gregarious animals.
The term ''herd'' is ...
as well.
See also
*Timeline of ceratopsian research
This timeline of ceratopsian research is a chronological listing of events in the history of paleontology focused on the ceratopsians, a group of herbivorous marginocephalian dinosaurs that evolved parrot-like beaks, bony frills, and, later, s ...
References
* *Wolfe, D. G. (2000). New information on the skull of ''Zuniceratops christopheri'', a neoceratopsian dinosaur from the Cretaceous Moreno Hill Formation, New Mexico. pp. 93–94, in S. G. Lucas and A. B. Heckert, eds. Dinosaurs of New Mexico. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin No. 17. Coronosaurs Late Cretaceous dinosaurs of North America Taxa named by James I. Kirkland Fossil taxa described in 1998 Paleontology in New Mexico Turonian genus first appearances Turonian genus extinctions Ornithischian genera {{ceratopsian-stub