#ceratopsia

[makairodonx]

A typical morning scene in the redwood forests of what is now the Hell Creek Formation, 68 million years ago

[new-dinosaurs]

Lokiceratops rangiformis Loewen et al., 2024 (new genus and species)

(Reconstructed skull of Lokiceratops rangiformis [scale bar = 1 m], with unpreserved portions in gray, from Loewen et al., 2024)

Meaning of name: Lokiceratops = [Norse deity] Loki's horned face [in Greek]; rangiformis = Rangifer [genus of the extant reindeer]-shaped [in Latin]

Age: Late Cretaceous (Campanian), roughly 78.1 million years ago

Where found: Judith River Formation, Montana, U.S.A.

How much is known: Partial skeleton of one individual, including a partial skull, several vertebrae, and some limb bones.

Notes: Lokiceratops was a centrosaurine cereratopsian, making it a horned dinosaur more closely related to Styracosaurus and Pachyrhinosaurus than to Triceratops. It is one of the largest known centrosaurines, with its skull alone being nearly 2 m long.

The skull of Lokiceratops was highly distinctive. A pair of very large, curved horns at the back of its frill pointed out to the sides. Furthermore, a pair of smaller horns closer to the center of the frill was asymmetrical, with one horn being larger than the other. Asymmetrical head ornamentation is also seen in the antlers of reindeer, hence the species name "rangiformis".

Lokiceratops is known from approximately the same time and location as three other centrosaurines, Albertaceratops, Medusaceratops, and Wendiceratops. Despite their diversity, all centrosaurines discovered so far are only known from very narrow ranges in both time and space. This may suggest that these horned dinosaurs diversified rapidly into numerous forms differentiated primarily by display features such as the shape of their horns and frills, with each species lasting only a short time in a small geographic region before evolving into new species or going extinct.

Reference: Loewen​​, M.A., J.J.W. Sertich​, S. Sampson, J.K. O’Connor, S. Carpenter, B. Sisson, A. Øhlenschlæger, A.A. Farke, P.J. Makovicky, N. Longrich, and D.C. Evans. 2024. Lokiceratops rangiformis gen. et sp. nov. (Ceratopsidae: Centrosaurinae) from the Campanian Judith River Formation of Montana reveals rapid regional radiations and extreme endemism within centrosaurine dinosaurs. PeerJ 12: e17224. doi: 10.7717/peerj.17224

[fawnrats]

[Image description: A stylized digital drawing of two styracosaurus watching a meteor shower at night. The styracosaurus on the left is dark brown with pale freckles & bright blue eyes, the styracosaurus on the right is greenish with dark freckles & pale green eyes. The grass is a dark & desaturated yellow-green color, & barren dark brown branches jut out from off screen. On one of the branches on the left, there's one pinkish brown thrush, whereas the branch on the right has two such thrushes. The sky is indigo & purple, the stars are a lighter purple & the shooting stars are pale blue & yellow. End of image description]

the styracosaurus on the left is my oc named peater that I designed myself, except for the stripes on his face & tail, which was a feature added to his design by cat-dragron on primeval age based off a design by tokkay on primeval age.

the styracosaurus on the right's name is gwenn & she belongs to & was designed by @sollyraptor

[paleoforest]

I thought that psittacosaurs have owl vibes, so I colored mongoliensis as barn owl

[alphynix]

Strange Symmetries #17: Spiky Surprise

Styracosaurus albertensis was a ceratopsid dinosaur living during the late Cretaceous about 75 million years ago, in what is now Alberta, Canada. Around 5m long (~16'), it was one of the most elaborately ornamented horned dinosaurs, with a long nose horn and multiple elongated spikes on its frill.

There was actually quite a lot of variation in the frills of Styracosaurus, with varying numbers of long spikes and extra hook-like projections present on some individuals. But one recently-discovered specimen nicknamed "Hannah" is especially surprising – it had a noticeable amount of asymmetry in its skull. The left and right sides show different numbers and arrangements of spikes, so much so that if the two halves had been discovered separately they might have been identified as belonging to two completely different species.

Frill arrangements are often used to define different ceratopsids, so if this level of individual variation and asymmetry existed in other species, too, then we may need to reevaluate some of them.

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[secularsasquatch]

[gwydpolls]

Time Travel Question 38: Pre-History Continued

If you could travel through time, but only to see something for Research or for fun, not to change anything, what would you pick? Yes you may have a Babel Fish.

Dinosaur audio recordings

Dinosaur Parenting behavior

Evolution of the earliest jellyfish

The Americas a hundred years before the first human set foot on them.

See how many Ceratopsia had quills and which were dimorphisms of one species

See the giant bugs of the Carboniferous

Dinosaur mating behavior

Spinosaur evolution

Catalog all Hallucigenia

Lepidodendrons

Voting ended onJan 13, 2024

These Questions are the result of suggestions from the previous iteration.

This category may include suggestions made too late to fall into the correct earlier time grouping. Basically, I'd already moved on to human history, but I'd periodically get a pre-homin suggestion, hence the occasional random item waaay out of it's time period, rather than reopen the category.

In some cases a culture lasted a really long time and I grouped them by whether it was likely the later or earlier grouping made the most sense with the information I had. (Invention ofs tend to fall in an earlier grouping if it's still open. Ones that imply height of or just before something tend to get grouped later, but not always. Sometimes I'll split two different things from the same culture into different polls because they involve separate research goals or the like).

Please add new suggestions below if you have them for future consideration. All cultures and time periods welcome.

[odvunir]

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