Serendipaceratops
| Serendipaceratops | ||||||||||
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||
| Lower chalk | ||||||||||
| 115 million years | ||||||||||
| Locations | ||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||
| Serendipaceratops | ||||||||||
| Rich & Vickers-Rich , 2003 |
Serendipaceratops is a little known species of bird Beck dinosaurs (ornithopoda) from the group of Ceratopsia .
Only one cubit of this dinosaur has been found so far . This suggests that it belongs to the Ceratopsia, but does not allow any further conclusions, so that Serendipaceratops is considered a nomen dubium .
What is remarkable about this find, however, is the location. The fossil was discovered in the Wonthaggi Formation in Victoria , Australia . It is the first find of Ceratopsia from this continent and, besides the poorly preserved Notoceratops from Argentina, the only one in the southern hemisphere - all other Ceratopsia finds come from East Asia or North America.
It was first described in 2003. Initially, the fossil was thought to be that of a theropod , but by chance the researchers discovered the similarity of the cubit with that of Leptoceratops . The genus is named after this coincidence ( Serendipity ) and the Greek keratops (= "horn face"). Type species is Serendipaceratops arthurcclarkei , the specific epithet honors the writer Arthur C. Clarke .
The finds are dated in the Lower Cretaceous ( Aptian ) to an age of around 115 million years. This makes Serendipaceratops one of the older Ceratopsia.
literature
- You Hailu, Peter Dodson : Basal Ceratopsia. In: David B. Weishampel , Peter Dodson, Halszka Osmólska (eds.): The Dinosauria . 2nd edition. University of California Press, Berkeley CA et al. 2004, ISBN 0-520-24209-2 , pp. 478-493, digitized version (PDF; 807.25 kB) .