Ceratopsian Wrangling

Here's a roundup of links relating to some of the new ceratopsians we've been delighting in recently. Of course, many of the new taxa introduced in the last couple of weeks come from the long-awaited new book New Perspectives on Horned Dinosaurs: the Royal Tyrrell Museum Ceratopsian Symposium. The symposium was held in the autumn of 2007, and brought together a couple hundred experts in the field to share recent research.

Michael J. Ryan talks Medusaceratops lokii
The Vancouver Sun has an article about Medusaceratops featuring New Perspectives on Horned Dinosaurs lead editor, paleontologist Michael J. Ryan. Regarding the name he gave the new ceratopsian, he tells the paper, "One of the things I have a problem with as a paleontologist is how some of my colleagues come up with terribly unpronounceable names... I like to give my dinosaurs names that roll off the tongue and actually evoke an image." Hear, hear.

Jim Kirkland writes about Diabloceratops eatoni
In a guest post at Dave Hone's Archosaur Musings, paleontologist Jim Kirkland sums up what's cool about the new, also-wonderfully-named Diabloceratops. There are some fine photos of the skull, which is a thing of beauty.

Four foot horns from Mexico

Reconstruction by Lukas Panzarin

Coahuilaceratops magnacuerna is the new ceratopsian from Mexico, making news because of its enormous horns. I'd expect a story about it from Nat Geo soonish, as they partially funded the Utah Museum of Natural History dig.

Ojoceratops fowleri
The Bisti-De-Na-Zin Wilderness of New Mexico recently produced the tyrannosaur Bistahieversor, and now gives us Ojoceratops, a mid-size ceratopsian. Discovered by a team led by Robert M. Sullivan of State College of Pennsylvania, Ojoceratops gets its name from the Ojo Alamo Formation in which its bones were found. It's a controversial rock formation, as it is right at the boundary of the Cretaceous and the Paleocene, the first age of the post-dinosaur world. Paleontologist Jim Fassett has argued for years that dinosaurs may have survived a while after the Chicxulub impact based on fossils found in this layer. Sullivan has argued against this, so I doubt that any such assertions will be in the description. There's a great summary of the Ojo Alamo controversy at Laelaps; articles on Ojoceratops at the Santa Fe New Mexican and Pennlive.com.

These are the few that have received coverage; there are more that haven't had much written about them, including Rubeosaurus, Utahceratops*, and Tatankaceratops. I wrote a bit on Ajkaceratops and a bit more on Sinoceratops. A good place to keep up with recent discoveries, including plenty I haven't had the time to write about, is Dinosaur Central.

Finally, if you're a Facebooker, Ceratopsians have their own fan group, moderated by the Royal Tyrrell's Darren Tanke. More exciting than the Beyonce group, for sure.

*Kind reader 220mya has informed me that Utahceratops is not included in this title, and not yet described.

Hellraising Hornheads

You may have noticed a ridiculous number of news stories about ceratopsians - the beaked, frilled, frequently horn-sporting relatives of Triceratops - in the last week or so. Or maybe you don't have a Google Alert set up for "dinosaurs," in which case I should advise you to set one up ASAP. You'll be delighted by how much it raises your esteem with your peers.

Sober social advice aside, the hornheads have been popping up all over the place, due in part to the release of New Perspectives on Horned Dinosaurs from Indiana University Press. The book includes descriptions of a number of new species, including Diabloceratops eatoni, Medusaceratops lokii, and Coahuilaceratops magnacuerna. Coahuilaceratops is making waves for its enormous brow horns and for being Mexico's first ceratopsid, which is the largest, most lavishly ornamented group of horned dinosaurs.

Not to be outdone, China now has one of its own as well; it's named Sinoceratops zhuchengensis and is described in a new paper in the Chinese Science Bulletin. Both of these national firsts extend the group's known western North American range. Smaller, primitive ceratopsians like Psittacosaurus and Protoceratops are well-known from Asia, so the Sinoceratops discovery is especially significant. The authors of the study present their own revision of the ceratopsid family tree and state that the ceratopsians may have originally arisen in Asia, flourishing generations later in North America. The recently introduced Ajkaceratops - which was a member of the broader ceratopsian family - would seem to support this idea, as its ancestors were likely also of Asian descent.

If you want to impress people by picking a favorite dinosaur that's a little left-field, cool-looking and cool-sounding, you've got some solid options here. Personally, I'm going with Medusaceratops - check out the amazing Luis Rey reconstruction here.

Also cool is that the cover model for New Perspectives on Horned Dinosaurs is none other than LITC's patron dinosaur, Chasmosaurus. Cleveland Museum of Natural History paleontologist Michael Ryan, lead editor of the book, identifies the artist as the Royal Tyrell Museum's Donna Sloan.

Aye Aye, Ajkaceratops

I have a small request for paleontologists. Can we please give the letter "A" a rest when naming new dinosaur genera? See, I try to be cute when writing about new discoveries, and give the posts alliterative titles. It's only May and my options for "A" are wearing really thin. In the beginning, I planned on only using greetings. I figured that every letter of the alphabet would begin a greeting in at least one language. Well, that's out the window. So now, I'm reduced to pirate-talk when I want to write about the exciting European ceratopsian Ajkaceratops kozmai.

But maybe piratese isn't such a bad way to title a post about a dinosaur whose late Cretaceous habitat is likely due to an "island-hopping" radiation of Asian ancestors. Ajkaceratops (pronounced oikaceratops) is more similar to primitive ceratopsians like Bagaceratops than it is to the famous giants of the North American west.

Bagaceratops by Nobu Tamura. Via wikimedia commons.

Ajkaceratops is described in the new issue of Nature by Attila Osi, R.J. Butler, and David Weishampel. I find the dinosaurs of the Cretaceous European archipelago fascinating - as discussed previously, many of them are smaller or more primitively built than their better known contemporaries. Had the Chicxulub disaster not happened, who knows what kind of interesting routes their evolution may have taken?

More: Discovery News, SciAm.