Utahceratops
Utahceratops | ||||||||||||
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Utahceratops gettyi , skeletal reconstruction and body outline. The components of the skeleton found in ocher. |
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Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
Upper Cretaceous (late Campanium ) | ||||||||||||
76.4 to 72 million years | ||||||||||||
Locations | ||||||||||||
Systematics | ||||||||||||
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Scientific name | ||||||||||||
Utahceratops | ||||||||||||
Sampson et al. , 2010 | ||||||||||||
Art | ||||||||||||
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Utahceratops ("horn face from Utah") is a genus of dinosaurs from the group of Ceratopsia or from their subgroup Chasmosaurinae . Utahceratops livedin the area of what is now Utah ( USA )during the Upper Cretaceous (late Campanium ); their fossils wereuncoveredin the Kaiparowits Formation .
The genus was first described by researchers working with Scott Sampson in 2010, the only species being Utahceratops gettyi . The art epithet honors the finder of the holotype , Mike Getty.
features
The holotype (copy number UMNH VP 16784) is a partially preserved skull. Other finds include a nearly complete, 2.3-meter-long skull that was found in connection with the remaining skeleton, the fragmentary skull of a young animal and some isolated skull bones.
Utahceratops differs from other representatives of the Ceratopsia in a number of unique features ( autapomorphies ): The nasal horn sits relatively far back and is almost entirely behind the nostrils. The super-eye horns are short, robust and directed obliquely upwards and to the side (dorsolateral). They are flattened and blunt at the top. As with other ceratopsids, the neck shield shows a wreath of spiky appendages. The middle of these processes on the sides of the neck shield (the middle episquamosals) were particularly low and elongated in Utahceratops, and some were over 10 centimeters long.
literature
- Scott D. Sampson, Mark A. Loewen, Andrew A. Farke, Eric M. Roberts, Catherine A. Forster, Joshua A. Smith, Alan L. Titus: New Horned Dinosaurs from Utah Provide Evidence for Intracontinental Dinosaur Endemism. In: PLoS ONE . Vol. 5, No. 9, 2010, e12292, doi : 10.1371 / journal.pone.0012292 .