Prehistoric Life/Dinosaurs/Ceratopsid Predecessors: Difference between revisions

* Try to tell everyone if ''[[Stock Dinosaurs|Protoceratops]]'' was really sheep-like. If you manage to do it, then try with this: ''Leptoceratops'', the same length of ''Protoceratops'' but ''partially bipedal''. And yet, ''Leptoceratops'' was really confronted with a sheep once. The first small-sized ceratopsian discovered (1910s), it was more primitive than ''Protoceratops'', being not only hornless but also bumpless, much slimmer-bodied, longer-legged, and with a much smaller frill. There is a surprising thing at this point: contrary to what one might expect, ''Leptoceratops'' lived ''later'' than ''Protoceratops'', at the very end of the Cretaceous. And roamed North-America, not Asia (where ceratopsians started their evolution), thus sharing the lands with ''Triceratops''. But for some reason, it had preserved the archaic bodyplan of its primitive ancestors. Another relative which lived along ''Leptoceratops'' is ''Montanoceratops'' from [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Montana]]; once thought to have had a small nasal horn [[Science Marches On|we now know]] it hadn't such a thing. ''Protoceratops'', ''Leptoceratops'' and other animals made once one family, the Protoceratopsids; now ''Leptoceratops'' and ''Montanoceratops'' make their own family, Leptoceratopsids. Another former protoceratopsid, Asian ''Bagaceratops'', has been recently put in its own family as well.

* Differences between Proto-ceratopsids and Real-ceratopsids are considerable. There ''should'' have been at least one intermediate form between the two: how could it have looked? In 1998, the answer was found under the name ''Zuniceratops'' (which has detained the record of “the last member of the Dinosaur Alphabet” for some years). The most ancient North American ceratopsian (Middle Cretaceous), it was only 4 m long and had a mixed ''Triceratops'' / ''Protoceratops'' appearance: two long frontal horns like the former, and none on the nose like the latter. This [[Mix and Match Critter]] look surprised scientists, which used to think frontal horns were a very evolved trait of some advanced ceratopsids - while the nasal one was believed the most ancient horn in ceratopsid’s history.

[[Category:Useful Notes/Prehistoric Life]]

[[Category:Useful Notes/Prehistoric Life Dinosaurs]]

[[Category:Prehistoric Life Ceratopsid Predecessors]]

[[Category:Useful Notes]]