Asiaceratops

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Asiaceratops
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Sauropsida Superorder: Dinosauria Order: Ornithischia Suborder: Marginocephalia Infraorder: Ceratopsia Genus: Asiaceratops

Asiaceratops (meaning "Asian horned face") was a genus of ceratopsian dinosaur. It lived during the Late Cretaceous. Its fossils have been found in China, Mongolia, and Uzbekistan. The type species, A. salsopaludalis, was formally described by Nessov and Kaznyshkina in 1989. A second species, A. sulcidens, has also been referred to the genus.

[edit] Classification

Asiaceratops 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

Asiaceratops, 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

• Asiaceratops in the Dinosaur Encyclopedia