Brachyceratops
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Brachyceratops Fossil range: Late Cretaceous |
||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
||||||||||||||||||
| Scientific classification | ||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| Species | ||||||||||||||||||
|
Brachyceratops (the name meaning 'short horn-face' is derived from Greek brachy-/βραχυ- meaning 'short', cerat-/κερατ- meaning 'horn' and -ops/ωψ meaning 'face')) is a genus of ceratopsian dinosaur. It lived during the Late Cretaceous Period. Its fossils have been found in Alberta, Canada and Montana, United States.
Contents |
[edit] Discoveries and species
Brachyceratops montanensis, the type species, was a somewhat rare ceratopsian species discovered in the Two Medicine Formation (about 74 million years old) on a Blackfoot Indian Reservation in north-central Montana. It was described by C. W. Gilmore in 1914. The original discovery consisted of the jumbled remains of five juvenile individuals which may or may not have been nest mates. As Brachyceratops is known from the remains of five juveniles, with those of a subadult that Gilmore found about a mile from the original specimens (which he felt were the same species), it is possible these are actually the immature forms of a known centrosaurine ceratopsian. These fossils are currently at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C.
[edit] Skull
Among the five original specimens only one skull was discovered, and it was detached from its owner's body and in fragments. Despite this, the skull showed that the animal had small bumps over the eyes rather than horns like in the more famous ceratopsians like Triceratops. It had a nasal horn that was thick and low. Its neck frill was moderately large, but the fossil specimen was incomplete so it cannot be determined if there were openings in the frill.
[edit] Classification
Brachyceratops belonged to the Ceratopsia (the name is Ancient 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
Brachyceratops, 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] Related animals
Brachyceratops's closest relatives among the ceratopsians were:
[edit] References
- Dodson, P. (1996). The Horned Dinosaurs. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey. ISBN 0-691-05900-4.
- Groups of Dinosaurs at Visiting Drumheller
