Prenoceratops
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Prenoceratops | ||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
||||||||||||||||
| Conservation status | ||||||||||||||||
|
Fossil
|
||||||||||||||||
| Scientific classification | ||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
| Species | ||||||||||||||||
|
P. pieganensis Chinnery, 2004 |
Prenoceratops, (meaning 'bent or prone-horned face' and derived from Greek prene-/πρηνη- meaning 'bent forwards' or 'prone', cerat-/κερατ- meaning 'horn' and -ops/ωψ meaning 'face') is a genus of dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous Period. Its fossils have been found in the Two Medicine Formation in the present-day U.S. state of Montana. It lived in the Campanian, between 83 million and 74 million years ago.
Contents |
[edit] Discovery and Species
Prenoceratops was first described by Brenda J. Chinnery in 2004. It is unusual in that it is the only basal neoceratopsian known from a bonebed.
Prenoceratops Species
- P. pieganensis (type)
[edit] Classification
Prenoceratops belonged to the Ceratopsia (which name is derived from Ancient Greek, meaning 'horned face'), a group of herbivorous dinosaurs with parrot-like beaks, which thrived in North America and Asia during the Cretaceous Period. It is closely related to Leptoceratops, which it antedates by several million years. It is characterized by a lower, more sloping head than that of Leptoceratops
[edit] Diet
Prenoceratops, 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
- Chinnery, BJ (2004). "Description of Prenoceratops pieganensis gen et sp. nov. (Dinosauria: Neoceratopsia) from the Two Medicine Formation of Montana.". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 24 (3): 572–590. doi:.
- http://www.vertpaleo.org/jvp/24-572-590.html (online abstract of the preceding article)
- Liddell & Scott (1980). Greek-English Lexicon, Abridged Edition. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. ISBN 0-19-910207-4.
