Platyceratops

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iPlatyceratops
Conservation status
Extinct (fossil)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Sauropsida Superorder: Dinosauria Order: Ornithischia Infraorder: Ceratopsia Genus: Platyceratops
Species
Platyceratops tatarinovi

Platyceratops is a dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous. Its fossils have been found in Mongolia. Its skull is larger than Bagaceratops; it has been referred to Bagaceratopidae or the Neoceratopsia.

The type specimen is Platyceratops tatarinovi, described by Aliafanov in 2003.

[edit] Classification

Platyceratops 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

Platyceratops, 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.users.qwest.net/~jstweet1/ceratopia.htm
• http://dml.cmnh.org/2004Sep/msg00359.html