Ceratopsia

Ceratopsians Temporal range: Late Jurassic – Late Cretaceous, 158–66 Ma PreЄ Є O S D C P T J K Pg N
File:Triceratops 1.jpg
Triceratops skeleton, Smithsonian Museum of Natural History
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Clade:	Dinosauria
Order:	†Ornithischia
Clade:	†Marginocephalia
Suborder:	†Ceratopsia Marsh, 1890
Subgroups
See text.

Ceratopsidae is the most advanced group of Ceratopsians

Ceratopsia or Ceratopia (/ˌsɛrəˈtɒpsiə/ or /ˌsɛrəˈtoʊpiə/; Greek: "horned faces") is a group of herbivorous, beaked dinosaurs that thrived in what are now North America, Europe, and Asia, during the Cretaceous Period, although ancestral forms lived earlier, in the Jurassic. The earliest known ceratopsian, Yinlong downsi, lived between 161.2 and 155.7 million years ago. The last ceratopsian species became extinct in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, 66 million years ago.

Early members of the ceratopsian group, such as Psittacosaurus, were small bipedal animals. Later members, including ceratopsids like Centrosaurus and Triceratops, became very large quadrupeds and developed elaborate facial horns and frills extending over the neck. While these frills might have served to protect the vulnerable neck from predators, they may also have been used for display, thermoregulation, the attachment of large neck and chewing muscles or some combination of the above. Ceratopsians ranged in size from 1 meter (3 ft) and 23 kilograms (50 lb) to over 9 meters (30 ft) and 5,400 kg (12,000 lb).

Triceratops is by far the best-known ceratopsian to the general public. It is traditional for ceratopsian genus names to end in "-ceratops", although this is not always the case. One of the first named genera was Ceratops itself, which lent its name to the group, although it is considered a nomen dubium today as its fossil remains have no distinguishing characteristics that are not also found in other ceratopsians.

Anatomy

Centrosaurus, with large nasal horn, exaggerated epoccipitals, and bony processes over the front of the frill. Museum of Victoria.

Ceratopsians are easily recognized by features of the skull. On the tip of a ceratopsian upper jaw is the rostral bone, a unique bone found nowhere else in the animal kingdom. Along with the predentary bone, which forms the tip of the lower jaw in all ornithischians, the rostral forms a superficially parrot-like beak. Also, the jugal bones below the eye are very tall and flare out sideways, making the skull appear somewhat triangular when viewed from above. This triangular appearance is accentuated in later ceratopsians by the rearwards extension of the parietal and squamosal bones of the skull roof, to form the neck frill.

History of study

The first ceratopsian remains known to science were discovered by Fielding Bradford Meek during the U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories led by the American geologist F.V. Hayden. In 1872, Meek found several giant bones protruding from a hillside in southwestern Wyoming. He alerted paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope, who led a dig to recover the partial skeleton. Cope recognized the remains as a dinosaur, but noted that even though the fossil lacked a skull, it was different from any type of dinosaur then known. He named the new species Agathaumas sylvestris, meaning "marvellous forest-dweller".

Classification

Ceratopsia was coined by Othniel Charles Marsh in 1890 to include dinosaurs possessing certain characteristic features, including horns, a rostral bone, teeth with two roots, fused neck vertebrae, and a forward-oriented pubis. Marsh considered the group distinct enough to warrant its own suborder within Ornithischia. The name is derived from the Greek κερας/keras meaning 'horn' and οψις/opsis meaning 'face'. As early as the 1960s, it was noted that the name Ceratopsia is actually incorrect linguistically and that it should be Ceratopia. However, this spelling, while technically correct, has been used only rarely in the scientific literature, and the vast majority of paleontologists continue to use Ceratopsia. As the ICZN does not govern taxa above the level of superfamily, this is unlikely to change.

Taxonomy

An early ceratopsian: Psittacosaurus

Montanoceratops, a leptoceratopsid

A typical protoceratopsid: Protoceratops skeleton at the Wyoming Dinosaur Center

File:Styracosaurus skeleton.jpg

Styracosaurus, a centrosaurine ceratopsid

Triceratops, one of the largest ceratopsians (a chasmosaurinae ceratopsid). It had solid frill and long horns.

Following Marsh, Ceratopsia has usually been classified as a suborder within the order Ornithischia. While ranked taxonomy has largely fallen out of favor among dinosaur paleontologists, some researchers have continued to employ such a classification, though sources have differed on what its rank should be. Most who still employ the use of ranks have retained its traditional ranking of suborder, though some have reduced to the level of infraorder.

This list of ceratopsian genera by classification and location follows a review by Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. in 2010.

• Ceratopsia
  • Albalophosaurus - (Japan)
  • Micropachycephalosaurus - (Shandong, eastern China)
  • Stenopelix - (Germany)
  • Yinlong - (Xinjiang, western China)
  • Family Chaoyangsauridae
    • Chaoyangsaurus - (Liaoning, northeastern China)
    • Xuanhuaceratops - (Hebei, China)
  • Family Psittacosauridae
    • Psittacosaurus - (China & Mongolia)
  • Neoceratopsia
    • Archaeoceratops - (Gansu, northwestern China)
    • Auroraceratops - (Gansu, northwestern China)
    • Helioceratops - (Jilin, northwestern China)
    • Koreaceratops - (South Korea)
    • Kulceratops - (Uzbekistan)
    • Liaoceratops - (Liaoning, northeastern China)
    • Microceratus - (Mongolia)
    • Mosaiceratops - (central China)
    • Yamaceratops - (Mongolia)
    • Family Leptoceratopsidae
      • Asiaceratops - (China, Mongolia, Uzbekistan)
      • Cerasinops - (Montana, US)
      • Gryphoceratops - (Alberta, Canada)
      • Ischioceratops - (China)
      • Leptoceratops - (Alberta, Canada & Wyoming, US)
      • Montanoceratops - (Montana, US)
      • Prenoceratops - (Montana, US)
      • Udanoceratops - (Mongolia)
      • Unescoceratops - (Alberta, Canada)
      • Zhuchengceratops - (Zhucheng, China)
    • Family Bagaceratopidae
      • Ajkaceratops - (Hungary)
      • Bagaceratops - (Mongolia)
      • Bainoceratops - (Mongolia)
      • Gobiceratops - (Mongolia)
      • Lamaceratops - (Mongolia)
    • Family Protoceratopsidae
      • Breviceratops - (Mongolia)
      • Graciliceratops - (Mongolia)
      • Magnirostris - (Inner Mongolia, China)
      • Protoceratops - (Mongolia)
    • Superfamily Ceratopsoidea
      • Turanoceratops - (Kazakhstan)
      • Zuniceratops - (New Mexico, US)
      • Family Ceratopsidae

Possible ceratopsians from the Southern Hemisphere include the Australian Serendipaceratops, known from an ulna, and Notoceratops from Argentina is known from a single toothless jaw (which has been lost). Craspedodon from the Late Cretaceous (Santonian) of Belgium may also be a ceratopsian, specifically a neoceratopsian closer to ceratopsoidea than protoceratopsidae. Possible leptoceratopsid remains have also been described from the early Campanian of Sweden.

Phylogeny

Ceratopsian skulls at the Natural History Museum of Utah

Paleontologists today agree on the overall structure of the ceratopsian family tree, although there are differences on individual taxa. There have been several cladistic studies performed on basal ceratopsians since 2000. None have used every taxon listed above and many of the differences between the studies are still unresolved.

In clade-based phylogenetic taxonomy, Ceratopsia is often defined to include all marginocephalians more closely related to Triceratops than to Pachycephalosaurus. Under this definition, the most basal known ceratopsians are Yinlong, from the Late Jurassic Period, along with Chaoyangsaurus and the family Psittacosauridae, from the Early Cretaceous Period, all of which were discovered in northern China or Mongolia. The rostral bone and flared jugals are already present in all of these forms, indicating that even earlier ceratopsians remain to be discovered.

The clade Neoceratopsia includes all ceratopsians more derived than psittacosaurids. Another subset of neoceratopsians is called Coronosauria, which currently includes all ceratopsians more derived than Auroraceratops. Coronosaurs show the first development of the neck frill and the fusion of the first several neck vertebrae to support the increasingly heavy head. Within Coronosauria, three groups are generally recognized, although the membership of these groups varies somewhat from study to study and some animals may not fit in any of them. One group can be called Protoceratopsidae and includes Protoceratops and its closest relatives, all Asian. Another group, Leptoceratopsidae, includes mostly North American animals that are more closely related to Leptoceratops. The Ceratopsoidea includes animals like Zuniceratops, which are more closely related to the family Ceratopsidae. This last family includes Triceratops and all the large North American ceratopsians and is further divided into the subfamilies Centrosaurinae and Ceratopsinae (also known as Chasmosaurinae).

Farke phylogeny

Andrew Farke and his colleagues in 2014 published a description of a new neoceratopsian, Aquilops americanus, through the peer-reviewed science journal PLOS ONE. They analysed their taxa as well as most other primitive ceratopsians to get a consensus cladogram. They created their own data matrix and through it found that many groups of ceratopsians could be supported, and that Aquilops was a basal neoceratopsian that could potentially be a protoceratopsid, leptoceratopsid, or ceratopsid, although any one of these groups would have a large ghost lineage with Aquilops.

Cerapoda

Hypsilophodon Marginocephalia Stegoceras Ceratopsia Yinlong Chaoyangsaurus Xuanhuaceratops Psittacosaurus P. mongoliensis P. sinensis Neoceratopsia Liaoceratops Ajkaceratops Aquilops Auroraceratops Yamaceratops Helioceratops Archaeoceratops Koreaceratops Leptoceratopsidae Asiaceratops Cerasinops Montanoceratops Prenoceratops Udanoceratops Leptoceratops Zhuchengceratops Unescoceratops Gryphoceratops Coronosauria Graciliceratops Protoceratopsidae Protoceratops Bagaceratops Ceratopsoidea Zuniceratops Turanoceratops Ceratopsidae Chasmosaurus Triceratops Diabloceratops Centrosaurus

Their study also found an equal consensus cladogram finding Ajkaceratops not as a neoceratopsian but a protoceratopsid. Nothing else about the cladograms changed.

Xu/Makovicky/Chinnery Phylogeny

Xu Xing of the Chinese Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) in Beijing, along with Peter Makovicky, formerly of the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City and others, published a cladistic analysis in the 2002 description of Liaoceratops. This analysis is very similar to one published by Makovicky in 2001. Makovicky, who currently works at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, also included this analysis in his 2002 doctoral thesis. Xu and other colleagues added Yinlong to this analysis in 2006.

Brenda Chinnery, formerly of the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana, independently described Prenoceratops in 2005 and published a new phylogeny. In 2006, Makovicky and Mark Norell of the AMNH incorporated Chinnery's analysis into their own and also added Yamaceratops, although they were not able to include Yinlong. The cladogram presented below is a combination of Xu, Makovicky, and their colleagues' most recent work.

Ceratopsia	Yinlong  void   void   Chaoyangsaurus  IVPP V12722 (Xuanhuaceratops)  void   Psittacosauridae  Neoceratopsia   Liaoceratops  void   Yamaceratops  void   Archaeoceratops  Coronosauria   Leptoceratopsidae   Montanoceratops  void   Udanoceratops  Leptoceratops  Prenoceratops  void   Graciliceratops  void   Protoceratopsidae   Bagaceratops  Protoceratops  void   Zuniceratops  Ceratopsidae

Chaoyangsaurus is recovered in a more basal position than Psittacosauridae, although Chinnery's original analysis finds it within Neoceratopsia. Protoceratopsidae is considered to be the sister group of Ceratopsoidea. The fragmentary Asiaceratops was included in these studies and is found to have a variable position, either as a basal neoceratopsian or as a leptoceratopsid, most likely due to the amount of missing information. Removal of Asiaceratops stabilizes the entire cladogram.

Makovicky's latest analysis includes IVPP V12722 ("Xuanhuasaurus"), a Late Jurassic ceratopsian from China that, at the time, was awaiting publication, but has since been published as Xuanhuaceratops. Kulceratops and Turanoceratops are considered nomina dubia in this study. Makovicky believes Lamaceratops, Magnirostris, and Platyceratops to be junior synonyms of Bagaceratops, and Bainoceratops to be synonymous with Protoceratops.

You/Dodson Phylogeny

You Hailu of Beijing's Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, was a co-author with Xu and Makovicky in 2002 but, in 2003, he and Peter Dodson from the University of Pennsylvania published a separate analysis. The two presented this analysis again in 2004. In 2005, You and three others, including Dodson, published on Auroraceratops and inserted this new dinosaur into their phylogeny.

Ceratopsia	Psittacosauridae  Neoceratopsia   Chaoyangsaurus  void   Liaoceratops  void   Archaeoceratops  void   Auroraceratops  Coronosauria   Protoceratopsidae   Bagaceratops  Protoceratops  void   Leptoceratopsidae   Montanoceratops  Leptoceratops  Ceratopsidae

In contrast to the previous analysis, You and Dodson find Chaoyangsaurus to be the most basal neoceratopsian, more derived than Psittacosaurus, while Leptoceratopsidae, not Protoceratopsidae, is recovered as the sister group of Ceratopsidae. This study includes Auroraceratops, but lacks seven taxa found in Xu and Makovicky's work, so it is unclear how comparable the two studies are. Asiaceratops and Turanoceratops are each considered nomina dubia and not included. Along with Dong Zhiming, You described Magnirostris in 2003, but to date has not included it in any of his cladograms.

Paleobiology

Biogeography

Ceratopsian fossil discoveries. The presence of Jurassic ceratopsians only in Asia indicates an Asian origin for the group, while the more derived ceratopsids occur only in North America save for one Asian species. Questionable remains are indicated with question marks.

Ceratopsia appears to have originated in Asia, as all of the earliest members are found there. Fragmentary remains, including teeth, which appear to be neoceratopsian, are found in North America from the Albian stage (112 to 100 million years ago), indicating that the group had dispersed across what is now the Bering Strait by the middle of the Cretaceous Period. Almost all leptoceratopsids are North American, aside from Udanoceratops, which may represent a separate dispersal event, back into Asia. Ceratopsids and their immediate ancestors, such as Zuniceratops, were unknown outside of western North America, and were presumed endemic to that continent. The traditional view that ceratopsoids originated in North America was called into question by the 2009 discovery of better specimens of the dubious Asian form Turanoceratops, which confirmed it as a ceratopsid. It is unknown whether this indicates ceratopsids actually originated in Asia, or if the Turanoceratops immigrated from North America.

Skin impression of Centrosaurus

Individual variation

Unlike almost all other dinosaur groups, skulls are the most commonly preserved elements of ceratopsian skeletons and many species are known only from skulls. There is a great deal of variation between and even within ceratopsian species. Complete growth series from embryo to adult are known for Psittacosaurus and Protoceratops, allowing the study of ontogenetic variation in these species. Significant sexual dimorphism has been noted in Protoceratops and several ceratopsids.

Ecological role

Psittacosaurus and Protoceratops are the most common dinosaurs in the different Mongolian sediments where they are found. Triceratops fossils are far and away the most common dinosaur remains found in the latest Cretaceous rocks in the western United States, making up as much as 5/6ths of the large dinosaur fauna in some areas. These facts indicate that some ceratopsians were the dominant herbivores in their environments.

Some species of ceratopsians, especially Centrosaurus and its relatives, appear to have been gregarious, living in herds. This is suggested by bonebed finds with the remains of many individuals of different ages. Like modern migratory herds, they would have had a significant effect on their environment, as well as serving as a major food source for predators.

Although ceratopsians are generally considered herbivorous, a few paleontologists, such as Darren Naish and Mark Witton, have speculated online that at least some ceratopsians may have been opportunistically omnivorous.

Posture and locomotion

Most restorations of ceratopsians show them with erect hindlimbs but semi-sprawling forelimbs, which suggest that they were not fast movers. But Paul and Christiansen (2000) argued that at least the later ceratopsians had upright forelimbs and the larger species may have been as fast as rhinos, which can run at up to 56 km or 35 miles per hour.

Daily activity patterns

A nocturnal lifestyle has been suggested for the primitive ceratopsian Protoceratops. However, comparisons between the scleral rings of Protoceratops and Psittacosaurus and modern birds and reptiles indicate that they may have been cathemeral, active throughout the day at short intervals.

Paleopathology

Main article: Paleopathology

Activity-related bone fractures have been documented in ceratopsians. Periostitis has also been documented in the shoulder blade of a ceratopsian.

Timeline of genera

See also

• Timeline of ceratopsian research

External links

• Dinosaurs portal
• Introduction to the Ceratopsians, University of California Museum of Paleontology
• Marginocephalia at Palaeos.com (technical)