Ceratopsia

Ceratopsians
Temporal range: Late Jurassic – Late Cretaceous, 161–66 Ma
Triceratops skeleton, American Museum of Natural History
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Dinosauria
Clade: Ornithischia
Clade: Neornithischia
Clade: Marginocephalia
Clade: Ceratopsia
Marsh, 1890
Type species
Ceratops montanus
Marsh, 1888
Subgroups

Ceratopsia or Ceratopia (/ˌsɛrəˈtɒpsiə/ or /ˌsɛrəˈtpiə/; Greek: "horned faces") is a group of herbivorous, beaked dinosaurs that thrived in what are now North America, Europe, and Asia, during the Cretaceous Period, although ancestral forms lived earlier, in the Jurassic. The earliest known ceratopsian, Yinlong downsi, lived between 161.2 and 155.7 million years ago.[4] The last ceratopsian species, Triceratops prorsus, became extinct during the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, 66 million years ago.[4]

Triceratops is by far the best-known ceratopsian to the general public. It is traditional for ceratopsian genus names to end in "-ceratops", although this is not always the case. One of the first named genera was Ceratops itself, which lent its name to the group, although it is considered a nomen dubium today as its fossil remains have no distinguishing characteristics that are not also found in other ceratopsians.[5][page needed]

  1. ^ Fonseca, A. O.; Reid, I. J.; Venner, A.; Duncan, R. J.; Garcia, M. S.; Müller, R. T. (2024). "A comprehensive phylogenetic analysis on early ornithischian evolution". Journal of Systematic Palaeontology. 22 (1). 2346577. Bibcode:2024JSPal..2246577F. doi:10.1080/14772019.2024.2346577.
  2. ^ Lee, Yuong-Nam; Ryan, Michael J.; Kobayashi, Yoshitsugo (2010). "The first ceratopsian dinosaur from South Korea" (PDF). Naturwissenschaften. 98 (1): 39–49. Bibcode:2011NW.....98...39L. doi:10.1007/s00114-010-0739-y. PMID 21085924. S2CID 23743082.
  3. ^ a b Rich, Thomas H.; Kear, Benjamin P.; Sinclair, Robert; Chinnery, Brenda; Carpenter, Kenneth; McHugh, Mary L.; Vickers-Rich, Patricia (2014). "Serendipaceratops arthurcclarkei Rich & Vickers-Rich, 2003 is an Australian Early Cretaceous ceratopsian". Alcheringa. 38 (4): 456–479. doi:10.1080/03115518.2014.894809. S2CID 128686247.
  4. ^ a b Holtz, Thomas R. Jr. (2011) Dinosaurs: The Most Complete, Up-to-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages, Winter 2010 Appendix.
  5. ^ Dodson, Peter (1996). The Horned Dinosaurs: A Natural History. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-02882-8.