Bainoceratops
| Bainoceratops | |
|---|---|
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Superorder: | Dinosauria |
| Order: | Ornithischia |
| Infraorder: | Ceratopsia |
| Family: | Leptoceratopsidae? |
| Genus: | Bainoceratops |
| Binomial name | |
| Bainoceratops efremovi Tereschenko & Alifanov, 2003 | |
Bainoceratops (Bain: mountain, keras: horn, ops: face) was a genus of dinosaur from the late Campanian in the Late Cretaceous. It was a ceratopsian first described by Tereschenko and Alifanov in 2003. Its fossils were found in southern Mongolia.
Classification
Bainoceratops belonged to the Ceratopsia (the name is Greek for "horned face"), a group of herbivorous dinosaurs with parrot-like beaks which thrived in North America and Asia during the Cretaceous Period, which ended roughly 66 million years ago.
Unfortunately, Bainoceratops is only known from a vertebral column. This is enough to distinguish it from Protoceratops and show that it is more closely related to Udanoceratops tschizhovi
Diet
Bainoceratops, like all ceratopsians, was a herbivore. During the Cretaceous, flowering plants were "geographically limited on the landscape", and so it is likely that this dinosaur fed on the predominant plants of the era: ferns, cycads and conifers. It would have used its sharp ceratopsian beak to bite off the leaves or needles.
See also
References
- Tereschenko, VS & Alifanov, VR (2003). "Bainoceratops efremovi, a new protoceratopid dinosaur (Protoceratopidae, Neoceratopsia) from the Bain-Dzak Locality (South Mongolia)". Paleontological Journal 37 (3): 293–302.
External links
- http://www.ntux.at/simonkrauter/newdinorama/dinos/b/bainoceratops/daten.htm (in German)
- Ceratopsia at Thescelosaurus!
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