Turanoceratops

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Turanoceratops Fossil range: Late Cretaceous
Conservation status
Extinct (fossil)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Sauropsida Superorder: Dinosauria Order: Ornithischia Suborder: Marginocephalia Infraorder: Ceratopsia Family: Ceratopsidae Genus: Turanoceratops Nessov et al, 1989

Turanoceratops ("Turan horn face") was a ceratopsian dinosaur. It lived during the Late Cretaceous. Its fossils were found in Uzbekistan.

[edit] Classification

Turanoceratops 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

Turanoceratops, 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

• Turanoceratops in The Dinosaur Encyclopaedia at Dino Russ's Lair
• Ceratopsia at Thescelosaurus!