Breviceratops

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iBreviceratops
Conservation status
Extinct (fossil)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Sauropsida Superorder: Dinosauria Order: Ornithischia Suborder: Marginocephalia Infraorder: Ceratopsia Family: Ceratopsidae Genus: Breviceratops

Breviceratops (meaning "short horn face") was a ceratopsian dinosaur from Late Cretaceous Mongolia. It was a related to Protoceratops. The fossils originally described by Maryanska and Osmolska in 1975 and placed in Protoceratops, were moved to the new genus by Kurzanov in 1990.

The type species is Breviceratops kozlowskii.

[edit] Classification

Breviceratops belonged to the Ceratopsia (the name is Greek for "horned face"), a group of herbivorous dinosaurs with parrot-like beaks which thrived in North America and Asia during the Cretaceous Period, which ended roughly 65 million years ago. All ceratopsians became extinct at the end of this era.

[edit] Diet

Breviceratops, like all Ceratopsians, was a herbivore. During the Cretaceous, flowering plants were "geographically limited on the landscape", and so it is likely that this dinosaur fed on the predominant plants of the era: ferns, cycads and conifers. It would have used its sharp Ceratopsian beak to bite off the leaves or needles.

[edit] References

• http://www.dinosaurvalley.com/groups.html
• http://208.164.121.55/reference/dinosaur/dodson.htm
• http://www.dinoruss.com/de_4/5a793f2.htm
• http://www.jpinstitute.com/dinopedia/dino_factcards/dfbrevi.html