| Bainoceratops | |
|---|---|
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Superorder: | Dinosauria |
| Order: | Ornithischia |
| Infraorder: | Ceratopsia |
| Family: | Leptoceratopsidae? |
| Genus: | Bainoceratops |
| Binomial name | |
| Bainoceratops efremovi Tereschenko & Alifanov, 2003 |
|
Bainoceratops (Baino: mountain, cera: horned, tops: face) was a genus of dinosaur from the late Campanian in the Late Cretaceous. It was a ceratopsian first described by Tereschenko and Alifanov in 2003. Its fossils were found in southern Mongolia.
Contents |
Bainoceratops 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.
Unfortunately, Bainoceratops is only known from a vertebral column. This is enough to distinguish it from Protoceratops and show that it is more closely related to Udanoceratops tschizhovi
Bainoceratops, 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.