| Xenoceratops Temporal range: Late Cretaceous | |
|---|---|
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| An artist's interpretation of Xenoceratops | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Clade: | Sauropsida |
| Order: | †Ornithischia |
| Family: | †Ceratopsidae |
| Genus: | †Xenoceratops' |
| Type species | |
| †Xenoceratops foremostensis | |
Xenoceratops (pronounced ZEE-no-SEH-rah-tops) is a centrosaurine ceratopsian lived in Late Cretaceous North America (80 million years ago) and was about 6 m long with a weight of 3 tons. It ate plants and had a large two-horned frill with 2 long brow horns.
Etymology[]
Xenoceratops is named from the Greek "xenos", meaning foreign, and "ceratops", meaning horned face. The combination is in reference to the lack of ceratopsian species known from the Foremost Formation. The specific epithet "foremostensis" is named after the town of Foremost, Alberta.
Discovery[]
In 1958, Wann Langston, Jr. excavated skull fragments from the Foremost Formation near Foremost, Alberta. The formation is very poorly understood in regards to dinosaur fauna; aside from teeth, only hadrosaur skeletons and the pachycephalosaurid Colepiocephale have been reported.
Langston stored the fragments in cabinets at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa. Around 2003, David C. Evans and Michael J. Ryan became curious about the specimens, and more thorough investigation was conducted in 2009. They discovered it to be a new species and genus, and it was described in 2012 by Ryan, Evans and Kieran M. Shepherd.
At the time of discovery, X. foremostensis is the oldest known taxon of ceratopsid dinosaur in Canada.[1] It is also the first ceratopsian described from the Foremost Formation in Alberta.
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