Kosmoceratops

Phylogeny: Dinosauria > Ornithischia > Genasauria > Neornithischia > Cerapoda > Marginocephalia > Ceratopsia > Neoceratopsia > Coronosauria > Ceratopsoidea > Ceratopsidae > Chasmosaurinae

Overview: The official description of Kosmoceratops as a new genus was published in 2010, based on a set of fossil remains unearthed in the state of Utah. Its generic name is derived from Greek, translated as “ornate horned face”. Ceratopsids like Kosmoceratops all possessed “ornate” faces, or more accurately, skulls overall. Said skull was enormous, bearing a long, beaked snout. The nasal horn was low, blade-like and oddly rectangular, as opposed to the longer and pointed horns usually seen on the snouts of its relatives. Kosmoceratops had much longer brow horns, which curved out towards the sides. The animal’s most distinctive feature was its frill, the top of which was curled forward and fringed by pointed hornlets. As with most ceratopsids, this frill was probably used for visual display purposes, but its horns may’ve played an additional defensive role. Ceratopsids differ little in their overall anatomy, but their cranial ornamentation helps to distinguish them.

Kosmoceratops belonged to the ceratopsid subfamily Chasmosaurinae, making it a somewhat close relative of Triceratops. It was more basal than Triceratops, however, being closer to genera like Pentaceratops and Spiclypeus. All of these animals were generally low-browsing herbivores, using their beaks to snap branches and snip stems, while tightly-packed shearing teeth lined the back of the jaws, well suited for processing even tougher vegetation. Some ceratopsids are known to have lived in groups, which was possibly the case with Kosmoceratops. Known fossils of this taxon include most of the skull, its ribcage, the spine, its pelvis and some leg bones. All were found within Utah’s Kaiparowits Formation, dated to the Late Cretaceous. It coexisted with other herbivores like Parasaurolophus and Nasutoceratops, as well as the carnivorous Teratophoneus (a tyrannosaurid). Deinosuchus, a large crocodilian or close kin to crocodilians, was also present.