''Bainoceratops'' (meaning "mountain horned face", after the type locality, Bayn Dzak) is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

ceratopsian 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 ...

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 late

Campanian The Campanian is the fifth of six ages of the Late Cretaceous Epoch on the geologic timescale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). In chronostratigraphy, it is the fifth of six stages in the Upper Cretaceous Series. Campani ...

in 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 ...

. The type species is ''B. efremovi''. Its fossils were found in southern

Mongolia Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million, ...

in the

Djadochta Formation The Djadochta Formation (sometimes Transcription (linguistics), transcribed and also known as Djadokhta, Djadokata, or Dzhadokhtskaya) is a highly fossiliferous geological formation situated in Central Asia, Gobi Desert, dating from the Late Creta ...

History

Viktor Tereshchenko and

Vladimir R. Alifanov Vladimir may refer to: Names * Vladimir (name) for the Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Macedonian, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak and Slovenian spellings of a Slavic name * Uladzimir for the Belarusian version of the name * Volodymyr for the Ukr ...

in 2003 named ''Bainoceratops efremovi'' based on a few dorsal (back) vertebrae that were stated to differ from those of ''

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 ...

'', suggesting a closer relationship with ''

Udanoceratops ''Udanoceratops'' (meaning "Udan's horned face") is a genus of large leptoceratopsid dinosaur that lived during the Late Cretaceous period of Mongolia, in what is now the Djadokhta Formation. Discovery ''Udanoceratops'' was first named and d ...

''. In 2006 North American paleontologists Peter Makovicky and

Mark A. Norell Mark Allen Norell (born July 26, 1957) is an American paleontologist, acknowledged as one of the most important living Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution, vertebrate paleontologists. He is currently the chairman of paleontology and a research ...

suggested that ''Bainoceratops'' may be synonymous with ''Protoceratops'' as most of the traits used to separate the former from the latter have been reported from other ceratopsians including ''Protoceratops'' itself, and they are more likely to fall within the wide intraspecific variation range of the concurring ''P. andrewsi''. In 2007, in their description of ''

Cerasinops ''Cerasinops'' (meaning 'cherry face') was a small ceratopsian dinosaur. It lived during the Campanian of the late Cretaceous Period.

'', authors Brenda J. Chinnery and John R. Horner determined ''Bainoceratops'' and other dubious genera to be either a variant or immature specimen of other well-known genera. Based on this reasoning, they excluded ''Bainoceratops'' from their phylogenetic analysis.

References

Ceratopsians Late Cretaceous dinosaurs of Asia Fossil taxa described in 2003 Ornithischian genera {{ceratopsian-stub

History

See also

References