Leptoceratops

Leptoceratops Temporal range: Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian), 67.2–66.2 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
Fossils CMN 8888 and CMN 8887 at the Canadian Museum of Nature, Ottawa
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Clade:	Dinosauria
Clade:	†Ornithischia
Clade:	†Neornithischia
Clade:	†Ceratopsia
Family:	†Leptoceratopsidae
Genus:	†Leptoceratops Brown, 1914[1]
Species:	†L. gracilis
Binomial name
†Leptoceratops gracilis Brown, 1914[1]

Leptoceratops (meaning 'small horn face') is a genus of ceratopsian dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of North America. First found in Alberta in 1910, the type species Leptoceratops gracilis was named in 1914 by Barnum Brown for a partial skull and skeleton of two individuals found in the Scollard Formation of Alberta. Additional specimens found in the Scollard include one complete and two mostly complete skeletons together, uncovered in 1947 by Charles M. Sternberg. Specimens from Montana that were among the earliest referred to Leptoceratops have since been moved to their own genera Montanoceratops and Cerasinops, while new specimens of L. gracilis include bonebed remains from the Hell Creek Formation of Montana and a partial skeleton from the Lance Formation of Wyoming. Together with related taxa, Leptoceratops is the eponymous genus of the family Leptoceratopsidae. Leptoceratops is known from more than ten individuals, all from Maastrichtian deposits of Alberta, Montana and Wyoming, representing the entire skeleton.

Multiple unusual features can be seen in the skeleton of Leptoceratops, which has a mixture of primitive and derived ceratopsian features and is around 2 m (6.6 ft) long. The head is very large with a strong jaw, but lacks horns and has a very reduced frill. The forelimbs and hindlimbs are robustly built, and Leptoceratops was likely bipedal when moving at speed and quadrupedal when moving slowly. The vertebrae of the tail were high-spined, though not as high as those of its relative Montanoceratops, and the pectoral and pelvis girdle bones were slender and more like earlier ceratopsians. The teeth of Leptoceratops are unique among dinosaurs, showing tooth wear in a fashion that must have been driven by mammal-like rotation of the jaw while chewing. This, along with the handling of stress in the jaws, show that Leptoceratops had an efficient bite allowing it to be adaptable to different food types, such as the angiosperms, conifers, or cycads found in its environment.

The environment inhabited by Leptoceratops was a semi-humid floodplain region with regular braided streams and small-treed forests. The climate was cool in the foothills of the mountainous cordillera, but the range of Leptoceratops also extended into coastal plains where it lived alongside much larger herbivorous dinosaurs. It is possible that within these environments, Leptoceratops dug and lived in multi-generational burrows. Leptoceratops was not a common component of the dinosaur fauna, but coexisted with the herbivorous Ankylosaurus, Edmontosaurus, Pachycephalosaurus, Triceratops and Thescelosaurus among other ornithischians, and theropods including dromaeosaurids, troodontids, Ornithomimus, Elmisaurus, an alvarezsaurid and Tyrannosaurus. Mammals are known from diverse forms that lived alongside Leptoceratops, and there are also fishes, amphibians, turtles, crocodilians, pterosaurs, and birds known.