A dinosaur was found which is about the same length as crow and the weight of a bunny. However this modest plant-eater that lived about 108 million years ago in southern Montana foreshadowed the atrocious horned dinosaurs that stepped on in North America thousands of years later.
On Wednesday scientists declared the discovery of the fossil of the oldest known horned dinosaur species from North America, Aquilops americanus that was closely similar to dinosaurs from Asia.
Ceratopsians, the horned dinosaur lineage, appeared in Asia but reached its peak in North America with the likes of Triceratops, a 30-foot-long, six-ton beast with lengthy, sharp horns over its eyes and nose and a bony shield beyond its neck.
Before Triceratops, Aquilops lived about 40 million years and possibly 20 million years before Zuniceratops, the next oldest ceratopsian spotted from North America.
Paleontologist Andrew Farke of the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology in Claremont, California, who led the research issued in the scientific journal PLOS ONE. Said,”Aquilops is identified from a skull and lower jaws, which allow us to nail down its position in the dinosaur family tree pretty precisely,”
Farke further added “Aquilops most importantly is more closely related to horned dinosaurs from Asia than it is to horned dinosaurs from North America such as Triceratops. This revealed that horned dinosaurs possibly migrated into North America from Asia at least two different time period,”
Aquilops is estimated at nearly 2 feet long and 2.5 pounds, and skull 3.3 inches long. Like later horned dinosaurs, it had a sharp beak used to cut off the plants it munched. Unlike later ceratopsians, it was assembly bipedal and did not have horns on its face instead it did have a set of spikes on its cheeks.
Aquilops is part of a building body of proof that revealed that Asian dinosaurs during the Early Cretaceous time Period showing up in North America , between 110 and 105 million years ago,”. Farke added, and also said early members of Tyrannosaurus rex’s lineage also had Asian origins.
Richard Cifelli at University of Oklahoma paleontologist said,”Horned dinosaurs were demonstrably successful in terms of species diversity and riches”.
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