Hualianceratops

Hualianceratops
Temporal range: Late Jurassic
Skull reconstruction
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Clade: Dinosauria
Order: †Ornithischia
Suborder: †Ceratopsia
Family: †Chaoyangsauridae
Genus: †Hualianceratops
Type species
†Hualianceratops wucaiwanensis

Hualianceratops is a genus of herbivorous ceratopsian dinosaur that lived about 160 million years ago in the Late Jurassic epoch in what is now western China. The single species, H. wucaiwanensis was described in 2015.[1][2] It is thought to have been about as large as a spaniel.[3]

Maxilla and jugal bone

In 2002, an expedition by the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology and the George Washington University in the region of Wucaiwan in Xinjiang discovered the skeleton of a small dinosaur. The fossil was prepared by Xiang Lishi, Yu Tao and Ding Xiaoqing.[1]

In 2015, the type species Hualianceratops wucaiwanensis was named and described by Han Fenglu, Catherine A. Forster, James M. Clark, and Xu Xing. The generic name combines the Chinese hua, "ornamental", and lian, "face", a reference to the ornamentation of the jaw bones, with ceratops, Latinised Greek for "hornface", a usual suffix in the names of ceratopsians. The specific name refers to the provenance at Wucaiwan, the "five colour bay". The species was named in the electronic publication PLoS ONE and the therefore mandatory Life Science Identifiers are D96319BA-6380-47D6-9512-5BDA15221A00 for the genus and DEEB3095-CB69-47CD-91FC-2D01D9F429D5 for the species.[1] Hualianceratops was one of eighteen dinosaur taxa from 2015 to be described in open access or free-to-read journals.[4] It is a probable member of the family Chaoyangsauridae.[1]

The holotype, IVPP V18641, was found in a layer of the upper Shishugou Formation dating from the Oxfordian. It consists of a partial skeleton with skull and lower jaws. It mainly preserves the rear sides of the head, some sacral vertebrae, the right lower hindlimb, a left calf bone and the left foot.[1]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Han, Fenglu; Forster, Catherine A.; Clark, James M.; Xu, Xing (9 December 2015). "A New Taxon of Basal Ceratopsian from China and the Early Evolution of Ceratopsia". PLOS ONE. 10 (12): e0143369. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0143369.
  2. ↑ Bhanoo, Sindya A. (11 December 2015). "Paleontologists Discover a Poor Cousin to Triceratops". New York Times. Retrieved 11 December 2015.
  3. ↑ "Scientists announce discovery of Hualianceratops, spaniel-sized dinosaur". The Daily Telegraph. Reuters. 10 December 2015. Retrieved 12 December 2015.
  4. ↑ "The Open Access Dinosaurs of 2015". PLOS Paleo.
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