Titanoceratops ouranos (lat.) Is a dinosaur species found in the Upper Cretaceous sediments (about 70 million years ago) in the United States . This is the oldest triceratopsin species (the late stage of the Campanian stage , the upper Fruitland Formation or lower Kirtland Formation ; 74-73 Ma). Fossil remains of this species were found in 1941 in San Juan County (in northwestern New Mexico , but were previously mistakenly assigned to the genus Pentaceratops ( Pentaceratops sternbergi ) [1] [2] .
| † Titanoceratops ouranos | ||||||||||||||||||||
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 Holotype Titanoceratops ouranos from Oklahoma Museum of Natural History | ||||||||||||||||||||
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| Titanoceratops ouranos Longrich, 2011 |
In size, it reached 9 m in length and weight of 6.5 tons, which makes it one of the largest types of ceratopsin. The holotype skull is the largest known skull of this group of dinosaurs, and possibly among all terrestrial animals. The length of its front part (without the occipital hood in the form of a large bone collar) from the rear edge to the tip of the muzzle is 1.2 meters, and the infraorbital horn reaches 91 cm in length. The total estimated length of the entire skull together with the bone collar reached 2.6 m. The cladistic analysis showed that the new species is a sister taxon to the clade formed by the genera Eotriceratops , Triceratops and Torosaurus [2] [3] .
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- ↑ A gigantic skull and skeleton of the horned dinosaur Pentaceratops sternbergi from New Mexico (Eng.) // Journal of Paleontology : journal. - Paleontological Society 1998. - Vol. 72 , no. 5 . - P. 894–906 .
- ↑ 1 2 Nicholas R. Longrich. Titanoceratops ouranos , a giant horned dinosaur from the Late Campanian of New Mexico (Eng.) // Cretaceous Research: journal. - 2011 .-- Vol. 32 , no. 3 . - P. 264-276 . - DOI : 10.1016 / j.cretres.2010.12.007 . Archived on August 16, 2016.
- ↑ Holtz, Thomas R. Jr. (2011). Dinosaurs: The Most Complete, Up-to-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages, Winter 2010 Appendix.