Sinoceratops

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

Overview: Ceratopsian dinosaurs first evolved at some point in the Jurassic, starting out as mainly tiny, bipedal herbivores. Remains of such creatures are known from Asia, suggesting ceratopsians trace their roots to the continent. The largest and most derived of the ceratopsians, known from the Late Cretaceous, were the members of the family Ceratopsidae. Despite ceratopsians as a whole originating from Asia and having a lot of success there, Asian ceratopsids specifically were once almost entirely unheard of. Currently, only Sinoceratops has been described from Asia, its fossils having been described from the Shandong Province in eastern China. Paleontologists fully described and named the animal in 2010, giving it the name “Chinese horned face”, in honor of its country of origin. Its discovery proved that ceratopsids, while perhaps rarer there than in North America, were still present in Asia towards the end of the Cretaceous. Its fossils are known from the Hongtuya Formation, so it may’ve coexisted with Shantungosaurus or Zhuchengtyrannus.

Sinoceratops is mainly based on skull material. Pieces recovered include part of its face and around the eye, the base of a nasal horn and a fair bit of the frill that projected from the back of the head. It appears to have had a fairly deep snout in life and, while its full shape is unknown, probably a fairly large nasal horn. Sinoceratops lacked horns over the eyes, though it may’ve had low ridges on the same spot. The frill was relatively short and rounded in profile, bearing two large openings. In life, these openings were covered by tissue and skin (unlike in some media portrayals of the genus). All along the rim of the frill were prominent, forward-curving hornlets. These features were mainly for visual display, though the horn likely doubled as a defensive weapon. Longer nasal horns and deeper snouts are traits associated with the ceratopsid subfamily Centrosaurinae. Sinoceratops is usually considered to have been a basal member of this clade. In other words, Sinoceratops was a lot more closely related to dinosaurs like Styracosaurus than it was to the famous Triceratops (a chasmosaurine ceratopsid).