Open Paleo

Wendiceratops

Evans & Ryan, 2015 WEN-dee-SEH-ruh-tops

Combines Wendi (honoring Canadian fossil hunter Wendy Sloboda) with Greek ceratops ('horned face'), meaning 'Wendy's horned face'

83.6–72.2 million years ago Campanian, Late Cretaceous
Late Cretaceous stages

Wendiceratops is a genus of herbivorous centrosaurine ceratopsian dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of Canada.

Diagnosis

  1. Epiparietals at loci ep 2 and ep 3 developed as broad-based, pachyostotic processes that are procurved anterodorsally to overhang the posterior and lateral parietal rami
  2. Large, upright nasal horncore positioned close to the orbits

Species

Wendiceratops pinhornensis Evans & Ryan, 2015

Type species

Named for the Pinhorn Provincial Grazing Reserve in Alberta, Canada, where the holotype was found.

Holotype
TMP 2011.051.0009 , Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology
Material
Incomplete parietal lacking midline bar and left ramus
Horizon
lower Oldman Formation, Campanian, Late Cretaceous , 83.6–72.2 million years ago
Locality
South Side Ceratopsian bonebed, Alberta, Canada The quarry sits in a single mudstone unit in the lower Oldman Formation, about 15 m above the Taber Coal Zone, a position Scott and colleagues (2022) remeasured. The bonebed lithosome can be traced some 50 m eastward along the outcrop.

References

  1. Evans, D. C.; Ryan, M. J. (2015). Cranial Anatomy of Wendiceratops pinhornensis gen. et sp. nov., a Centrosaurine Ceratopsid (Dinosauria: Ornithischia) from the Oldman Formation (Campanian), Alberta, Canada, and the Evolution of Ceratopsid Nasal Ornamentation. PLOS ONE 10(7): e0130007. Public Library of Science (PLoS). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0130007 evans2015a
  2. Paul, G. S. (2024). The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs (3rd ed.). Princeton University Press.

    Source of the appearance features.

    paul2024a
  3. Scott, S. H. W.; Ryan, M. J.; Evans, D. C. (2022). Postcranial description of Wendiceratops pinhornensis and a taphonomic analysis of the oldest monodominant ceratopsid bonebed. The Anatomical Record 306(7): 1824-1841. Wiley. doi:10.1002/ar.25045

    Describes the postcranium from the type bonebed and reinterprets the rectangular distal ischium as a possible basal centrosaurine synapomorphy rather than an autapomorphy of this genus.

    scott2022a