Xuanhuaceratops

Xuanhuaceratops
Temporal occurrence
Upper Jurassic ( Tithonian )
152.1 to 145 million years
Locations
China
Systematics
Pelvic dinosaur (Ornithischia) Cerapoda Marginocephalia Ceratopsia Chaoyangsauridae Xuanhuaceratops
Scientific name
Xuanhuaceratops
Zhao, Cheng, Xu & Makovicky , 2006
Art
X. niei Zhao et al., 2006

Xuanhuaceratops is a little known genus of the bird's dinosaur (Ornithischia) from the group of the Ceratopsia . He is one of the more primitive representatives of this group.

So far, only parts of the skull , individual vertebrae , parts of the pelvis and isolated limb bones are known of Xuanhuaceratops . It is likely to have resembled the closely related Chaoyangsaurus , differences exist in the construction of the quadratum , the shoulder blade and in the fact that it had only one tooth in the intermaxillary bone (premaxillary). Xuanhuaceratops was a small, possibly bipedal (moving on two legs) dinosaur, like all Ceratopsia it was herbivorous.

The fossil remains of this dinosaur were found in the Houcheng Formation in Hebei Province, China . The genus was not described for a long time and was known under the name Xuanhuasaurus , which is now considered an invalid nomen nudum .

The first formal description was made by Zhao, Cheng, Xu and Makovicky in 2006. The generic name is derived from the location Xuanhua ( belonging to the city of Zhangjiakou ) and the Greek ceratops (= "horn face"), a common part of the Ceratopsia name. Type species is X. niei . The finds are dated in the late Upper Jurassic (Tithonian) to an age of about 152 to 145 million years.

Xuanhuaceratops together with the also long time did not formally described chaoyangsaurus classified in the family Chaoyangsauridae that the basal representatives of Ceratopsia be expected. The exact systematic position within this group of dinosaurs is controversial. The first descriptors of Xuanhuaceratops see this and Chaoyangsaurus as more primitive than the Psittacosauridae . You & Dodson (2004), however, classify Chaoyangsaurus as the most basal representative of the Neoceratopsia and thus more highly developed than the Psittacosauridae.

literature

• Xijin Zhao , Zhengwu Cheng, Xing Xu , Peter J. Makovicky : A new ceratopsian from the Upper Jurassic Houcheng Formation of Hebei, China. In: Acta Geologica Sinica. Vol. 80, No. 4, 2006, ISSN  0001-5717 , pp. 467-473, doi : 10.3321 / j.issn: 1000-9515.2006.04.001 .
• 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) .

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. 245, online .