This plant-eating species, Hualianceratops wucaiwanensis, was about the size of a spaniel and was able to walk on its two hind legs, researchers from the George Washington University (GW) report in a new study.
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Ceratopsians did not become quadrupedal and did not acquire their trademark horns until tens of millions of years later.
An global team of paleontologists has discovered a new species of hornless ceratopsian dinosaur, called Hualianceratops wucaiwanensis, in China.
“Now we know the horned dinosaurs thrived in the early Late Jurassic, and they co-existed with Guanlong, which was an early relative of T.Rex and maybe threatened them”, said Fenglu Han, a postdoctoral student in the School of Earth Sciences at China University of Geosciences and lead author of the paper. Hualianceratops wucaiwanensis, a cousin of the triceratops, was a dinosaur the size of a spaniel with a heavy build. It stood on its hind legs, which makes the spaniel comparison seem that much cuter. Named after its facial furrows, the Hualianceratops is estimated to have lived over 160 million years ago – during the late Jurassic period. Both ceratops species were found in the same fossil beds in Xinjiang Province.
Researchers worked with a partial skull and foot to reconstruct the newly discovered dino and compare it to other ceratopsians, the family it belongs to.
“The phylogeny and the earliest Late Jurassic age of Yinlong and Hualianceratops imply that at least five ceratopsian lineages (Yinlong, Hualianceratops, Chaoyangsaurus and Xuanhuaceratops, Psittacosaurus, Neoceratopsia) were present at the beginning of the Late Jurassic”, they said. While it’s a member of the “horned dinosaur”, this new species actually doesn’t possess horns itself. The dinosaur is a type of Ankylosaur, group of four-legged, herbivorous dinosaurs, closely related to stegosaurs.
Hualianceratops lived in the same time and same place as the Yinlong, which until now had been considered the earliest-known ceratopsian, said Forster. Forster describes the Hualianceratops as a chunkier version of Yinlong, which has a heavier built.
The discovery is important because it proves that the Ceratopsian family, of which all three animals were part of, was much more diversified than it was initially believed. The two lived alongside an array of plant-eating and meat-eating dinosaurs, turtles, crocodilians and primitive mammals.
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Dinosaurs, not including their bird descendants, disappeared about 66 million years ago. That is because they did not possess the huge frills and giant horns of the other ceratopsians.
