Open Paleo

Coronosauria

Sereno, 1986

Its genera lived 93.9–66.0 million years ago Late Cretaceous
Late Cretaceous stages

Coronosauria is a clade of neoceratopsian dinosaurs, defined as the smallest group containing both Protoceratops and Triceratops. Its members show the first development of the elaborate neck frill and the fusion of the first several neck vertebrae into a single unit, an adaptation that helped support their increasingly heavy heads. Two subgroups are generally recognized within it: the Protoceratopsidae, a set of small Asian forms including Protoceratops and its closest relatives, and the Ceratopsoidea, which contains the large horned Ceratopsidae along with related animals such as Zuniceratops. Coronosaurs lived during the Cretaceous of Asia and North America.

Diagnosis

  1. Well-developed, broad parietosquamosal frill
  2. Syncervical formed by fusion of the first several cervical vertebrae
  3. Enlarged external naris
  4. Strongly downturned, deep rostrum

Clades within Coronosauria

References

  1. Sereno, P. C. (1986). Phylogeny of the bird-hipped dinosaurs (Order Ornithischia). National Geographic Research 2(2): 234-256.

    Named Coronosauria.

    sereno1986a
  2. Madzia, D.; Arbour, V. M.; Boyd, C. A.; Farke, A. A.; Cruzado-Caballero, P.; Evans, D. C. (2021). The phylogenetic nomenclature of ornithischian dinosaurs. PeerJ 9: e12362. doi:10.7717/peerj.12362

    Provides the modern phylogenetic definition of Coronosauria.

    madzia2021a