| Graciliceratops Temporal range: Late Cretaceous, 90 Ma |
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| Artist's impression | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Superorder: | Dinosauria |
| Order: | Ornithischia |
| Suborder: | Cerapoda |
| Infraorder: | Ceratopsia |
| Genus: | Graciliceratops Sereno et al., 2000 |
| Species | |
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G. mongoliensis Sereno et al., 2000 (type) |
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Graciliceratops (meaning 'graceful horned face') is a Ceratopsian dinosaur first described by paleontologist Paul Sereno in 2000. It is known from the Late Cretaceous period and its fossils were found in Mongolia. Only a partial skeleton has been found.
The type (and only known) species is Graciliceratops mongoliensis.
Contents |
Graciliceratops 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.
Graciliceratops, 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.