Taxons
Montanoceratops
Montanoceratops cerorhynchus (Brown & Schlaikjer, 1942) - fossil ceratopsian dinosaur skeleton from the Cretaceous of Montana, USA. (MOR 542, Museum of the Rockies, Bozeman, Montana, USA)
The species name is sometimes incorrectly spelled "cerorhynchos". The original publication spells it "cerorhynchus". The genus name is sometimes incorrectly spelled "Montanaceratops".
Ceratopsians are the "horned dinosaurs". They were large, quadrupedal, herbivorous dinosaurs having a beaked skull and a frill - an extension of bone behind the skull that partially covered the neck. Ceratopsian dinosaurs are known from the Jurassic and Cretaceous. The last members of the group died out at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, 65 million years ago.
This is a partial skeleton of a juvenile Montanoceratops, a ceratopsian from the near-latest Cretaceous of western North America. This type of ceratopsian lacked facial horns.
From exhibit signage:
Sixty-eight million years ago, when the horned dinosaurs Triceratops and Torosaurus inhabited the coastal plain near the inland ocean, primitive "horned" dinosaurs named Montanoceratops lived in uplands near the young Rocky Mountains. These little protoceratopsians fed on plants with slicing teeth and narrow beaks similar to their giant three-horned relatives.
Classification: Animalia, Chordata, Vertebrata, Reptilia, Archosauria, Dinosauria, Ornithischia, Marginocephalia, Ceratopsia, Leptoceratopsidae
Stratigraphy: St. Mary River Formation, Maastrichtian Stage, Upper Cretaceous
Locality: Little Rocky Coulee, north of the town of Cut Bank, eastern Glacier County, northwestern Montana, USA
Info. at:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montanoceratops
