Zhuchengceratops
Name:
Zhuchengceratops
(Zhucheng horned face).
Phonetic: Zhu-cheng-seh-rah-tops.
Named By: Xing Xu, Kebai Wang, Xijin Zhao,
Corwin Sullivan & Shuqing Chen - 2010.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia, Dinosauria,
Ornithischia, Ceratopsia, Leptoceratopsidae.
Species: Z. inexpectus
(type).
Diet: Herbivore.
Size: About 2 meters long.
Known locations: China, Shandong Province,
Zhucheng County - Wangshi Group.
Time period: Campanian of the Cretaceous.
Fossil representation: Articulated partial
skeleton, and incomplete mandibles (lower jaws) and maxillae.
Zhuchengceratops
was on the larger average size for known leptoceratopsid
dinosaurs,
and one of the most impressive features were the mandibles (lower
jaw bones), which at fifty centimetres long and eighteen
centimetres deep at the mid-point, were simply huge for a dinosaur of
this size. These mandibles were about one and a half centimetres wide
along the bottom (ventral) edge, and five centimetres wide along
the top (dorsal) edge, meaning that they were well suited to
provide strong support for the teeth of the cheek. These teeth
processed what was presumably tough food that had been snipped off from
a plant by the beak like anterior portion of the mouth, hence the
necessity for such a robust jaw.
In
some respects Zhuchengceratops is similar to other
leptoceratopsids
such as Leptoceratops
and Udanoceratops
due to the facts the jaw of
Zhuchengceratops articulates above the top of the
dentary teeth, and
the lower edge of the maxilla bows out in a convex manner.
Zhuchengceratops however also has a number of
morphological features
that were unknown in previously studied genera. This indicates that
as a group the leptoceratopsids continued to adapt and diversify during
the late Cretaceous, and were not merely the basal forms of the more
famous quadrupedal ceratopsian dinosaurs.
Being
discovered in the Wangshi Group, Zhuchengceratops
likely shared its
habitat with the ceratopsian Sinoceratops,
the hadrosaurs
Tanius,
Shantungosaurus
and Tsintaosaurus
and the ankylosaur Pinacosaurus
amongst others. Predatory threats may have come from dinosaurs like
Zhuchengtyrannus.
Further reading
- A New Leptoceratopsid (Ornithischia: Ceratopsia) from the
Upper Cretaceous of Shandong, China and Its Implications for
Neoceratopsian Evolution, Xing Xu, Kebai Wang, Xijin Zhao,
Corwin Sullivan & Shuqing Chen - 2010.
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