Dinosaur with protrusion from back of head

Ceratopsians came in many shapes and sizes.

Newly discovered dino with skull protrusion like "decorative fins on classic s cars" gets a name like a god and a car. Mercuriceratops gemini. It might sound like the home planet of a yet-to-be- introduced Marvel superhero, but in fact it's the moniker given to a new kind of dinosaur that has a swooping bony plate extending up behind its head. Evans is a co-author of a paper that describes the new species online in the journal Naturwissenschaften. The big beast -- which lived about 77 million years ago, weighed more than 2 tons, ate only plants, and was about 20 feet long -- belongs to the group of dinos known as ceratopsian, which is the horned class. It got the "Mercuriceratops" part of its name because the bony ornamentation on its head reminded scientists of the wings on the helmet of the Roman god Mercury -- though one might be forgiven for thinking the name came from a certain model of Ford.

Dinosaur with protrusion from back of head

The type species , P. It lived during the Maastrichtian age of the Late Cretaceous period in what is now western North America. More complete fossils would come to be found in the following years. Pachycephalosaurus was among the last species of non-avian dinosaurs on Earth before the Cretaceous—Paleogene extinction event. The genus Tylosteus has been synonymized with Pachycephalosaurus , as have the genera Stygimoloch and Dracorex , in recent studies. Like other pachycephalosaurids, Pachycephalosaurus was a bipedal herbivore , possessing long, strong legs and somewhat small arms with five-fingered hands. This hypothesis has actually been highly disputed in recent years. Remains attributable to Pachycephalosaurus may have been found as early as the s. As determined by Donald Baird , in or , Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden , an early fossil collector in the American West, collected a bone fragment in the vicinity of the head of the Missouri River , from what is now known to be the Lance Formation of southeastern Montana. Its actual nature was not revealed until Baird studied it again over a century later and identified it as a squamosal bone from the back of the skull of Pachycephalosaurus , including a set of bony knobs corresponding to those found on other specimens of Pachycephalosaurus.

Explore pictures and detailed profiles of over 60 ceratopsian dinosaurs, ranging from A Achelousaurus to Z Zuniceratops. However, it's possible that Brachyceratops may one day be assigned as a new species of an existing genus of ceratopsian, especially if it turns out that juveniles changed their appearance as they aged. Scientists do not yet know what these dinosaurs ate.

Find out about its size, habitat, diet and more! Parasaurolophus had a broad flat mouth that looked like a duck's beak. It was a very unusual looking dinosaur :. This site contains affiliate links. Please read my advertising disclosure. Dinosaur Activity Pack.

Ceratopsians came in many shapes and sizes. Ceratopsians— the horned, frilled dinosaurs—were some of the most common plant-eaters of the later Mesozoic Era. Explore pictures and detailed profiles of over 60 ceratopsian dinosaurs, ranging from A Achelousaurus to Z Zuniceratops. Woodlands of North America. Historical Period:. Late Cretaceous million years ago. Size and Weight:. About 20 feet long and one ton. Distinguishing Characteristics:.

Dinosaur with protrusion from back of head

Everyone knows Pachycephalosaurus , that bipedal dome-head that ran around head-butting other dinosaurs all day long, but few people ever stop and give it much thought beyond that. This is an odd group of dinosaurs, with Pachycephalosaurus being the largest so far yet perhaps not the strangest. Like their basal ornithischian ancestors, pachycephalosaurs were bipedal, never attainting giant quadruped morphs like all other bird-hipped dinosaur lineages eventually did. The most common part of them to fossilize is their skulls, especially the gnarly spikes and dense, bony dome that crowned the heads of these animals. Not all species in this family had domed heads, mind you, as this feature gradually became more and more prominent throughout the evolution of the group. While you might think pachycephalosaurs were closely related to the hadrosaurs, being bipedal plant eaters, but their closest relatives are actually the horned ceratopsians.

1996 playboy

Called the Parasaurolophus, it was a duck-billed plant eater about the size of a pickup truck that had a unique characteristic — a large crest jutting from the back of its head that served as a horn. Voluminous evidence has come forward of early Cretaceous and even late Jurassic ceratopsian precursors, a notable example of which is Liaoceratops. The name Pentaceratops "five-horned face" is a bit of a misnomer: this ceratopsian actually had only three real horns, the other two being outgrowths of its cheekbones. Clinton, William. Parasaurolophus walkeri , from the Dinosaur Park Formation , was a member of a diverse and well-documented fauna of prehistoric animals, including well-known dinosaurs such as the horned Centrosaurus , Chasmosaurus , and Styracosaurus ; ornithomimids Struthiomimus ; fellow duckbills Gryposaurus and Corythosaurus ; tyrannosaurids Gorgosaurus and Daspletosaurus ; and armored Edmontonia , Euoplocephalus and Dyoplosaurus. The type species , P. This three-foot-long herbivore looks more like an ornithopod and is only identified as a ceratopsian thanks to the unique structure of its beak. In , the third species, P. The name Achelousaurus refers both to this dinosaur's supposedly "missing" horns and its weird, shape-shifting mix of frills and bony knobs, compared to its fellow ceratopsians. If, as is commonly illustrated, a skin frill extended from the crest to the neck or back, the proposed visual display would have been much showier.

The Evolution and Behavior of Pachycephalosaur Dinosaurs. Pachycephalosaurs Greek for "thick-headed lizards" were an unusually small family of dinosaurs with an unusually high entertainment value. As you can guess from their name, these two-legged herbivores were distinguished by their skulls, which ranged from the mildly thick in early genera like Wannanosaurus to the truly dense in later genera like Stegoceras.

Bibcode : CrRes.. About 22 feet long and tons. Explore pictures and detailed profiles of over 60 ceratopsian dinosaurs, ranging from A Achelousaurus to Z Zuniceratops. Please read my advertising disclosure. Based on this feature, one paleontologist has concluded that Albertaceratops is the most "basal" earliest, simplest ceratopsian in the Centrosaurus lineage. Whereas the North American Leptoceratops coexisted with the larger, more familiar ceratopsians of its day, like Triceratops , Zhuchengceratops and its pig-sized ilk were the only horned, frilled dinosaurs of late Cretaceous Asia. Most of the ceratopsians "horned faces" of the late Cretaceous period were gigantic, multi-ton earth-shakers like Triceratops , but millions of years earlier, in the eastern regions of Asia, these dinosaurs were much more petite. As for other lambeosaurines, it is believed that the cranial crest of Parasaurolophus changed with age and was a sexually dimorphic characteristic in adults. Small size; bipedal posture; thickened skull. Late Cretaceous 77 million years ago. Below is a cladogram modified from Evans et al. Large frill with "wings" on bottom; two horns above eyes. Ornate frill; horn on snout. Woodlands of western North America.