Prenoceratops

Prenoceratops
Temporal range: Late Cretaceous 74.3 Ma
↓
Cast of a fossil skeleton, The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Clade: Dinosauria
Order: †Ornithischia
Family: †Leptoceratopsidae
Genus: †Prenoceratops
Chinnery, 2004
Species: †P. pieganensis
Binomial name
Prenoceratops 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 ceratopsian dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous Period. Its fossils have been found in the upper Two Medicine Formation in the present-day U.S. state of Montana, in Campanian age rock layers that have been dated to 74.3 million years ago.[1]

Discovery and species

Restoration

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 include P. pieganensis (type).

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.

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.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Ryan, M. J., Evans, D. C., Currie, P. J., Brown, C. M., & Brinkman, D. (2012). New leptoceratopsids from the Upper Cretaceous of Alberta, Canada. Cretaceous Research, 35: 69-80.


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