Graciliceratops
Name:
Graciliceratops
(graceful horned face).
Phonetic: Gras-sil-i-seh-rah-tops.
Named By: P. C. Sereno - 2000.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia, Dinosauria,
Ornithischia, Ceratopsia.
Species: G. mongoliensis
(type).
Diet: Herbivore.
Size: Skull 20 centimetres long, body
estimated at 80-90 centimetres long, holotype may well be a juvenile, so fully grown adults would have been larger
Known locations: Mongolia - Shiregin Gashun
Formation.
Time period: Cenomanian of the Cretaceous.
Fossil representation: Skull and partial but
articulated post cranial skeleton of a possible juvenile.
The type specimen was originally assigned to the genus Microceratops (now a synonym to Microceratus), Graciliceratops seems to have been a small and lightly built ceratopsian dinosaur. Graciliceratops seems to have been more comfortable in a bipedal posture, but already it is clear that Graciliceratops would have been easily able to adopt a quadrupedal posture when browsing upon low growing vegetation. The mouth of Graciliceratops had already formed a shearing beak which would have been capable of shearing off parts of plants.
Further reading
- The fossil record, systematics and evolution of pachycephalosaurs
and ceratopsians from Asia - P. C. Sereno - In The Age of
Dinosaurs in Russia and Mongolia. by M. J. Benton, M. A.
Shishkin, D. M. Unwin & E. N. Kurochkin (eds)
-
2000.
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