''Udanoceratops'' (meaning "Udan's horned face") is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

of large

leptoceratopsid Leptoceratopsidae is an extinct family of neoceratopsian dinosaurs from Asia, North America and Europe. Leptoceratopsids resembled, and were closely related to, other neoceratopsians, such as the families Protoceratopsidae and Ceratopsidae, bu ...

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 ...

that lived during the

Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''creta'', the ...

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 ...

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 what is now the

Djadokhta Formation The Djadochta Formation (sometimes 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 Cretaceous period, about 75 milli ...

Discovery

''Udanoceratops'' was first named and described by

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

paleontologist 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 ...

Sergei Kurzanov Sergei Mikhailovich Kurzanov (Сергей Михайлович Курзанов, born 1947) is a Russian (formerly Soviet) paleontologist at the Paleontological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He is known mainly for his work in Mongo ...

1992 File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: 1992 Los Angeles riots, Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the Police brutality, police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment buildi ...

and the

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...

is ''Udanoceratops tschizhovi''. The

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several ...

(PIN 3907/11) was collected during the 1980s at the Udan Sayr (also spelled Udyn Sayr or Üüden Sair) locality of the

Ömnögovi Province Ömnögovi ( mn, Өмнөговь ''Ömnögovǐ'', ''South Gobi'') is an aimag (province) of Mongolia, located in the south of the country, in the Gobi Desert. Ömnögovi is Mongolia's largest aimag. The capital is Dalanzadgad. The province is r ...

, dating to the

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. Campanian s ...

stage of the

. The generic name is derived from the name of the locality in which the holotype was found (Udan Sayr) and

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

''ceras/κέρας'' meaning "horn" and ''-ops/ωψ'' meaning "face". ''Udanoceratops'' is best known from the holotype specimen, which represents a large individual comprising a large, relatively well-preserved and almost complete

skull The skull is a bone protective cavity for the brain. The skull is composed of four types of bone i.e., cranial bones, facial bones, ear ossicles and hyoid bone. However two parts are more prominent: the cranium and the mandible. In humans, the ...

, and sparse body remains including vertebrae. In 1993 a large skull ("nearly 1 m long") assigned to ''Udanoceratops'' was reported from the nearby

Bayan Mandahu Formation The Bayan Mandahu Formation (also known as Wulansuhai Formation or Wuliangsuhai Formation) is a geological unit of "redbeds" located near the village of Bayan Mandahu in Inner Mongolia, China Asia ( Gobi Desert) and dates from the late Cretaceous ...

by paleontologist

Tomasz Jerzykiewicz Tomasz is a Polish given name, the equivalent of Thomas in English. Notable people with the given name include: * Tomasz Adamek (born 1976), Polish heavyweight boxer *Tomasz Arciszewski (1877–1955), Polish socialist politician and Prime Mini ...

. However, Polish paleontologist Łukasz Czepiński in 2020 pointed out that there are no referable specimens to ''Udanoceratops'' from the Bayan Mandahu collections, and it is most likely that these remains were confused with the concurring (and relatively large) ''

Protoceratops hellenikorhinus ''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. helleni ...

''. In 2004 Viktor S. Tereschhenko referred a juvenile specimen (PIN 4046/11) to ''Udanoceratops'' aff. ''tschizhovi'', from the Baga Tariach locality in

Dornogovi Province Dornogovi ( mn, Дорноговь, ''East Gobi'') is one of the 21 aimags (provinces) of Mongolia. It is located in the southeast of the country, bordering PR China's autonomous region of Inner Mongolia. Dornogovi is located in the Gobi desert ...

, which Tereschhenko attributed to the Djadokhta Formation. Geological analyses carried out across fossiliferous localities of the

Gobi Desert The Gobi Desert (Chinese: 戈壁 (沙漠), Mongolian: Говь (ᠭᠣᠪᠢ)) () is a large desert or brushland region in East Asia, and is the sixth largest desert in the world. Geography The Gobi measures from southwest to northeast an ...

published by Mahito Watabe and team in 2010, indicates that this locality instead correlates best with the

Maastrichtian The Maastrichtian () is, in the ICS geologic timescale, the latest age (uppermost stage) of the Late Cretaceous Epoch or Upper Cretaceous Series, the Cretaceous Period or System, and of the Mesozoic Era or Erathem. It spanned the interval from ...

-stage

Barun Goyot Formation The Barun Goyot Formation (also known as Baruungoyot Formation or West Goyot Formation) is a geological formation dating to the Late Cretaceous Period. It is located within and is widely represented in the Gobi Desert Basin, in the Ömnögovi Pro ...

. The assignment of this specimen, however, has varied since then from "''Udanoceratops''" sp., to ?''Udanoceratops'' sp.

Description

''Udanoceratops'' was a large ceratopsian, estimated at to have reached nearly long with a weight of . It is the largest leptoceratopsid known so far. The skull had a short frill and no horns over the eyes or nose. Its skull was about long. The lower jaw was distinctively robust.

Classification

''Udanoceratops'' belonged to the Ceratopsia (the name is derived

meaning 'horned face'), a group of herbivorous dinosaurs with

parrot Parrots, also known as psittacines (), are birds of the roughly 398 species in 92 genera comprising the order Psittaciformes (), found mostly in tropical and subtropical regions. The order is subdivided into three superfamilies: the Psittacoid ...

-like beaks which thrived in

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 ...

and

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...

during the

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. It is placed within the

Leptoceratopsidae Leptoceratopsidae is an extinct family of neoceratopsian dinosaurs from Asia, North America and Europe. Leptoceratopsids resembled, and were closely related to, other neoceratopsians, such as the families Protoceratopsidae and Ceratopsidae, but t ...

, as the only Asian representative at the time, along with the North American ''

Leptoceratops ''Leptoceratops'' (meaning 'Thin-horned face' and derived from Greek ''lepto-/λεπτο-'' meaning 'small', 'insignificant', 'slender', 'meagre' or 'lean', ''kerat-/κερατ-'' meaning 'horn' and ''-ops/ωψ'' meaning face), is a genus of lept ...

'', ''

Montanoceratops ''Montanoceratops'' is an extinct genus of small ceratopsian dinosaur that lived approximately 70 million years ago during the latter part of the Cretaceous Period in what is now Montana and Alberta. ''Montanoceratops'' was a small sized, modera ...

'' and ''

Prenoceratops ''Prenoceratops'', (meaning 'bent or prone-horned face' and derived from Greek ''prene-/πρηνη-'' meaning 'bent forwards' or 'prone', ''cerat-/κερατ-'' meaning 'horn' and ''-ops/ωψ'' meaning 'face') is a genus of ceratopsian dinosaur f ...

''.

Paleobiology

''Udanoceratops'', like all ceratopsians, 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 ...

. The short, deep jaws would have given the animal a powerful bite. The toothless beak would have served to grasp and crop stems or leaves, and as in other leptoceratopsids, the teeth would have met with an action that combined shearing and crushing. The feeding adaptations seen in leptoceratopsids suggest a diet of relatively tough food items, however little is known about the plants that grew in the Gobi Desert during the Cretaceous.

References

External links