Albertaceratops

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Albertaceratops
Albertaceratops nesmoi, live reconstruction

Albertaceratops nesmoi , live reconstruction

Temporal occurrence
Upper Crayon (middle Campanium )
80.6 to 76.4 million years
Locations
Systematics
Marginocephalia
Ceratopsia
Neoceratopsia
Ceratopsidae
Centrosaurinae
Albertaceratops
Scientific name
Albertaceratops
Ryan , 2007
Art
  • Albertaceratops nesmoi

Albertaceratops ("horn face of Alberta") is a genus of ceratopsian dinosaurs (Ceratopsia) from the North American Upper Cretaceous (Middle Campanium ) about 80 to 76 million years ago. So far only the species ( type species ) Albertaceratops nesmoi is known, which reached a body length of about six meters.

This dinosaur is a basal representative of the Centrosaurinae , a sub- taxon of the Ceratopsia with a comparatively short neck shield, whose representatives are usually characterized by a protruding nasal horn in conjunction with relatively small over-eye horns.

Find history

The then student Michael J. Ryan found fossils of this dinosaur, which like all Ceratopians was a quadruped herbivore, in the Oldman Formation in the southeast of the Canadian province Alberta , about 290 km southeast of Calgary . Known for its wealth of dinosaur remains, this rock formation is part of the Judith River Formation . Further material from the Judith River Formation, which was assigned to this dinosaur, comes from northern central Montana , i.e. from the US state that adjoins Alberta to the south. Six years later , Ryan, then curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History , described the new genus and species scientifically for the first time. He chose the generic name according to the place of discovery and with the species epithet he honored the farmer Cecil Nesmo, who supported the excavation and on whose site the find was made. In his dissertation published in 2003 Ryan called the dinosaur "Medusaceratops".

description

Albertaceratops is known from an almost complete skull ( holotype TMP.2001.26.1 ) and other skull remains. The nose had a bony crest. The combination of pronounced super-eye horns each about one meter long with an otherwise typical centrosaurine skull is unusual. The two outward-pointing large horn kernels on the neck shield are a characteristic feature that was previously only known from the Ceratopsinae and Zuniceratops . Zuniceratops was a long-horned ceratopier that is the oldest known representative of this line of dinosaurs in North America, twelve million years older than Albertaceratops . With its combination of characteristics, Albertaceratops places itself at the beginning of the development of the Centrosaurinae in North America and mediates between Zuniceratops and younger forms with smaller horns with which it is more closely related.

Systematics

  Ceratopidae  

 Chasmosaurinae


  Centrosaurinae  

 Diabloceratops


   


 Nasutoceratops


   

 Avaceratops



   

 Xenoceratops


   

 Albertaceratops


   

 Wendiceratops


   

 Sinoceratops



   



 Coronosaurus


   

 Centrosaurus


   

 Spinops




   

 Rubeosaurus


   

 Styracosaurus




   

 Einiosaurus


   

 Achelousaurus


   

 Pachyrhinosaurus





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Systematic position of Albertaceratops according to Evans & Ryan (2015).

Albertaceratops is assigned to the Centrosaurinae. In 2015, the family tree of the Centrosaurinae was revised by Evans & Ryan (2015) on the occasion of the first description of the Wendiceratops found in Canada . Accordingly, Albertaceratops represents a comparatively basal genus,

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gregory S. Paul : The Princeton Field Guide To Dinosaurs. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ et al. 2010, ISBN 978-0-691-13720-9 , p. 259, online .
  2. David C. Evans , Michael J. Ryan : Cranial Anatomy of Wendiceratops pinhornensis gen. Et sp. nov., a Centrosaurine Ceratopsid (Dinosauria: Ornithischia) from the Oldman Formation (Campanian), Alberta, Canada, and the Evolution of Ceratopsid Nasal Ornamentation. PLOS ONE 10 (7): e0130007. doi : 10.1371 / journal.pone.0130007 .