Archovember 2024 Day 9 - Spiclypeus shipporum
Spiclypeus shipporum was a large chasmosaurine ceratopsian from Late Cretaceous Montana, USA. It is only known from one specimen (a partial skull, vertebrae, ribs, a left humerus, a left ilium and the left hindlimb) nicknamed “Judith” after the Judith River Formation. But this specimen is very unique, with brow horns that swept out to the side and two epiparietals (frill horns) fused and curling down over its frill. Judith appeared to also have sustained an infection in their frill, hypothesised to have come from an injury inflicted by a rival Spiclypeus, where the rival’s brow horns pierced into the bone of Judith’s frill. They also had a more serious infection in their humerus, with a large abscess, as well as evidence of arthritis. Judith was an adult, at least 10 years old, and it’s suspected that they had reach an advanced age before dying, despite their injuries. They were a testament to the rough life of combat and survival ceratopsians faced, and their resilience in spite of it all.
Spiclypeus lived in the Judith River Formation during the Late Campanian. It would have lived on a coastal floodplain criss-crossed by rivers and oxbow lakes. It may have lived alongside other ceratopsians, but there is a hypothesis that Spiclypeus, Ceratops montanus, and Pentaceratops aquilonius may all be the same species, however, so far their remains are too fragmentary to form a conclusion. It would have also shared space with the hadrosaur Corythosaurus, the ankylosaurs Edmontonia and Zuul, and the pachycephalosaur Hanssuesia. Theropods included the dromaeosaurs Dromaeosaurus and Saurornitholestes, the avialan Hesperornis altus, and the tyrannosaurid apex predators Daspletosaurus and Gorgosaurus. Other reptiles included lizards, turtles, the choristodere Champsosaurus, and the alligatoroids Leidyosuchus and Deinosuchus.
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