Utahceratops
Name:
Utahceratops
(Utah horned face).
Phonetic: U-tah-seh-rah-tops.
Named By: S. D. Sampson, M. A. Loewen,
A. A. Farke, E. M. Roberts, C. A. Forster, J. A.
Smith & A.L. Titus - 2010.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia, Dinosauria,
Ornithischia, Ceratopsidae, Chasmosaurinae.
Species: U. gettyi (type).
Diet: Herbivore.
Size: Body length estimated up to about 4.5 to
5 meters long, and roughly 2 meters high at the shoulder.
Reconstructed skull is 2.3 meters long.
Known locations: USA, Utah - Kaiparowits
Formation.
Time period: Campanian of the Cretaceous.
Fossil representation: Fossils from at least 6
individuals allowing for approximately 90% of the skull and 70%
of the post cranial skeleton to be studied.
With
most of the skeleton known and represented by several individuals,
Utahceratops is one of the better known ceratopsian
dinosaurs, which
often are named only from partial skulls. At about five meters long
Utahceratops was roughly mid-sized for a
quadrupedal ceratopsian,
dinosaur, but the skull seems to be oversized with a length of about
two hundred and thirty centimetres. However, the frill of the skull
which accounts for much of this length have large fenestral (holes)
openings, which meant that the frill was not solid, and kept
proportionately lightweight. With horns that were not especially
large, Utahceratops may have relied upon a
distinctive pattern of
markings and colours on the frill in order to identify others of
their kind from the many other types of ceratopsian dinosaurs that were
about.
Utahceratops
was named at the same time as another ceratopsian dinosaur called
Kosmoceratops, which has a considerably more
ornate horn and frill
display than that of Utahceratops. Kosmoceratops
and Utahceratops
also lived at the same time and locations as one another as well as
another ceratopsian dinosaur named Nasutoceratops.
Other dinosaurs
in their ecosystem included hadrosaurs
such as Parasaurolophus
and
Gryposaurus.
Predatory threats to Utahceratops
likely came from
tyrannosaurs
such as Teratophoneus
and perhaps even Albertosaurus.
Smaller theropods such as dromaeosaurs
like Talos
and maybe Troodon
would have been threats to smaller juvenile Utahceratops.
Further reading
- New Horned Dinosaurs from Utah Provide Evidence for
Intracontinental Dinosaur Endemism. - S. D. Sampson, M. A.
Loewen, A. A. Farke, E. M. Roberts, C. A. Forster,
J. A. Smith & A.L. Titus - In Anna Stepanova.
PLoS ONE 5 (9): e12292. - 2010.
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