Styracosaurus is a genus of herbivorous ceratopsian dinosaur from the Cretaceous Period. It had four to six long parietal spikes extending from its neck frill, a smaller jugal horn on each of its cheeks, and a single horn protruding from its nose. The fossil material is limited, with the best part being a portion of the parietal bone of the frill.
About Styracosaurus in brief
Styracosaurus is a genus of herbivorous ceratopsian dinosaur from the Cretaceous Period. It had four to six long parietal spikes extending from its neck frill, a smaller jugal horn on each of its cheeks, and a single horn protruding from its nose. The function or functions of the horns and frills have been debated for many years. Styracosaurus was a relatively large dinosaur, reaching lengths of 5. 5 meters and weighing nearly 3 tonnes. It stood about 1. 8 meters tall and had four short legs and a bulky body. The skull had a beak and shearing cheek teeth arranged in continuous dental batteries, suggesting that the animal sliced up plants. It may have been a herd animal, travelling in large groups, as suggested by bone beds. It is hoped more pieces will be found, perhaps enough to warrant a redescription of the skull and test whether S. albertensis and S. parksi are the same. A third species, S. ovatus, named in 1930 by Charles Gilmore was reassigned to a new genus, Rubeosaurus, by Andrew McDonald and Jack Horner in 2010. The fossil material is limited, with the best part being a portion of the parietal bone of the frill. A review of styracosaur remains by Ryan Holmes, Ryan Holmes and Russell Russell, found it to be a distinct species. The spikes are much shorter than in S bertensis, and instead of three spikes on each side of the Frill, there are only two sets of spikes on both sides of thefrill, rather than three rather than four.
It appears that the smallest frill spike on the left side is partially overlapped at its base by the next spike. The normal shape of this area is unknown because the corresponding area of the right side of frill was not recovered. The fossils were also found in the Dinosaur Park Formation, near Steveville, Alberta. The first fossil remains were collected in Alberta, Canada by C. M. Sternberg and named by Lawrence Lambe in 1913. These fossils indicate that S. albertense was around 5.5 to 5. 8 meters in length and stood about 65 m high at the hips. The second fossil was found in 1935 by a Royal Ontario Museum crew who found the missing lower jaws and most of the skeleton. These were collected and it is now accepted as a specimen of S. albertensis. It was named in honor of William Parks, named for his role in the discovery of the dinosaur’s habitat in Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, in the early 1900s. The bones were found in a quarry that is now part of the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller, Alberta in the summer of 2006. At least one confirmed bone bed has also been explored by Darren Tanke of the University of Alberta. These are known to contain numerous pieces of horn pieces, such as horn, jaws and jaws and frill pieces.
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This page is based on the article Styracosaurus published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 20, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
