Utahceratops

Utahceratops
Temporal range: Late Cretaceous, 76.4–75.5 Ma
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Reconstructed skeleton, Natural History Museum of Utah
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Dinosauria
Clade: †Ornithischia
Clade: †Neornithischia
Clade: †Ceratopsia
Family: †Ceratopsidae
Subfamily: †Chasmosaurinae
Genus: †Utahceratops
Sampson et al., 2010
Species:
†U. gettyi
Binomial name
†Utahceratops gettyi
Sampson et al., 2010

Utahceratops is an extinct genus of ceratopsian dinosaur that lived approximately 76.4~75.5 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous period in what is now Utah. Utahceratops was a large-sized, robustly-built, ground-dwelling, quadrupedal herbivore, that could grow up to an estimated 4.5–5 m (15–16 ft) long.

Discovery

The genus name Utahceratops, means "horned face from Utah", and is derived from the state of Utah and Greek words "keras" (κέρας) meaning "horn" and "ops" (ὤψ) referring to the "face".[1] The specific name gettyi, is derived from the name of Mike Getty, who discovered the holotype and has played a pivotal role in the recovery of fossils from the Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument (GSENM). It was first named by Scott D. Sampson, Mark A. Loewen, Andrew A. Farke, Eric M. Roberts, Catherine A. Forster, Joshua A. Smith and Alan L. Titus in 2010, and the type species is Utahceratops gettyi.[2]

Description

Restoration

The holotype specimen UMNH VP 16784, consists of only a partial skull. This genus is known from six specimens, including two partial skulls, which when taken together preserve about 96% of the skull and 70% of the postcranial skeleton. Utahceratops are estimated to have measured 4.5–5 metres (14.8–16.4 ft) in length and 2 tonnes (2.2 tons) in weight.[3][4]

According to Sampson et al. (2010), Utahceratops can be distinguished based on the following characteristics: the nasal horncore is caudally positioned, almost entirely behind external naris; the supraorbital horncores are short, robust, dorsolaterally directed, and oblate in shape with a blunt tip; the episquamosals on the mid-portion of the lateral frill margin are low and extremely elongate (some >10 cm long); and the median portion of transverse bar of the parietal bone is rostrally curved.[2]

Phylogeny

Reconstructed skeleton of Utahceratops with known elements in yellow
Selected craniofacial elements
Size comparison

Utahceratops has been classified as a basal chasmosaurine ceratopsian. It has been found to be in a clade of basal chasmosaurines with Pentaceratops.[2]

The below cladogram follows Longrich (2014), who named a new species of Pentaceratops, and included nearly all chasmosaurine species.[5]

Chasmosaurinae

Mercuriceratops

Judiceratops

Chasmosaurus

Chasmosaurus sp. CMN 2280

Chasmosaurus belli

Chasmosaurus irvinensis

Mojoceratops

Agujaceratops

Pentaceratops aquilonius

Williams Fork chasmosaur

Kosmoceratops

Kosmoceratops richardsoni

Kosmoceratops sp. CMN 8301

Anchiceratops

Almond Formation chasmosaur

Paleoecology

Mirarce on Utahceratops

Habitat

North America about 75 mya, location the discovery of Utahceratops shown

The only known specimen of Utahceratops was recovered at the Kaiparowits Formation, in Utah.[2] Argon-argon radiometric dating indicates that the Kaiparowits Formation was deposited between 76.6 and 74.5 million years ago, during the Campanian stage of the Late Cretaceous period.[6][7] During the Late Cretaceous period, the site of the Kaiparowits Formation was located near the western shore of the Western Interior Seaway, a large inland sea that split North America into two landmasses, Laramidia to the west and Appalachia to the east. The plateau where dinosaurs lived was an ancient floodplain dominated by large channels and abundant wetland peat swamps, ponds and lakes, and was bordered by highlands. The climate was wet and humid, and supported an abundant and diverse range of organisms.[8] This formation contains one of the best and most continuous records of Late Cretaceous terrestrial life in the world.[9]

Paleofauna

Utahceratops shared its paleoenvironment with other dinosaurs, such as dromaeosaurid theropods, the troodontid Talos sampsoni, tyrannosaurids like Teratophoneus, armored ankylosaurids, the duckbilled hadrosaurs Parasaurolophus cyrtocristatus and Gryposaurus monumentensis, the ceratopsians Nasutoceratops titusi and Kosmoceratops richardsoni and the oviraptorosaurian Hagryphus giganteus.[10] Some fossil evidence suggests the presence of the tyrannosaurid Albertosaurus and the ornithomimid Ornithomimus velox, but the existing assessment of the material is not conclusive. Paleofauna present in the Kaiparowits Formation included chondrichthyans (sharks and rays), frogs, salamanders, turtles, lizards and crocodilians. A variety of early mammals were present including multituberculates, marsupials, and insectivorans.[11]

See also

References

  1. ^ Liddell, Henry George and Robert Scott (1980). A Greek-English Lexicon (Abridged ed.). United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-910207-4.
  2. ^ a b c d Sampson, S. D.; Loewen, M. A.; Farke, A. A.; Roberts, E. M.; Forster, C. A.; Smith, J. A.; Titus, A. L. (2010). Stepanova, Anna (ed.). "New Horned Dinosaurs from Utah Provide Evidence for Intracontinental Dinosaur Endemism". PLOS ONE. 5 (9): e12292. Bibcode:2010PLoSO...512292S. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0012292. PMC 2929175. PMID 20877459.
  3. ^ Paul, G.S. (2016). "Genasaurs". The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs (2nd ed.). Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. p. 297. ISBN 978-0-691-16766-4.
  4. ^ Raia, P.; Passaro, F.; Carotenuto, F.; Maiorino, L.; Piras, P.; Teresi, L.; Meiri, S.; Itescu, Y.; Novosolov, M.; Baiano, M. A.; Martinez, R.; Fortelius, M. (2015). "Cope's rule and the universal scaling law of ornament complexity". The American Naturalist. 186 (2): 165–175. doi:10.1086/682011. hdl:11336/55178. PMID 26655146.
  5. ^ Longrich, N. R. (2014). "The horned dinosaurs Pentaceratops and Kosmoceratops from the upper Campanian of Alberta and implications for dinosaur biogeography". Cretaceous Research. 51: 292–308. Bibcode:2014CrRes..51..292L. doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2014.06.011.
  6. ^ Roberts EM, Deino AL, Chan MA (2005) 40Ar/39Ar age of the Kaiparowits Formation, southern Utah, and correlation of contemporaneous Campanian strata and vertebrate faunas along the margin of the Western Interior Basin. Cretaceous Res 26: 307–318.
  7. ^ Eaton, J.G., 2002. Multituberculate mammals from the Wahweap (Campanian, Aquilan) and Kaiparowits (Campanian, Judithian) formations, within and near Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument, southern Utah. Miscellaneous Publication 02-4, UtahGeological Survey, 66 pp.
  8. ^ Titus, Alan L. and Mark A. Loewen (editors). At the Top of the Grand Staircase: The Late Cretaceous of Southern Utah. 2013. Indiana University Press. Hardbound: 634 pp.
  9. ^ Clinton, William. "Presidential Proclamation: Establishment of the Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument". September 18, 1996. Archived from the original on 28 August 2013. Retrieved 9 November 2013.
  10. ^ Zanno, Lindsay E.; Sampson, Scott D. (2005). "A new oviraptorosaur (Theropoda; Maniraptora) from the Late Cretaceous (Campanian) of Utah". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 25 (4): 897–904. doi:10.1671/0272-4634(2005)025[0897:ANOTMF]2.0.CO;2.
  11. ^ Eaton, Jeffrey G.; Cifelli, Richard L.; Hutchinson, J. Howard; Kirkland, James I.; Parrish, J. Michael tyrannosaurid albertosarusyear=1999 (1999). "Cretaceous vertebrate faunas from the Kaiparowits Plateau, south-central Utah". In Gillete, David D. (ed.). Vertebrate Paleontology in Utah. Miscellaneous Publication 99-1. Salt Lake City: Utah Geological Survey. pp. 345–353. ISBN 1-55791-634-9.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)