Paleontologists Announce Two Tiny Ceratopsians

When I think of ceratopsian dinosaurs, giant and well-ornamented forms such as Triceratops and Styracosaurus immediately spring to mind. These spiky creatures represent the acme of horned dinosaur decoration. But not all ceratopsians were insanely adorned heavyweights. There were small, lightly built ceratopsians running around the Late Cretaceous of Asia and North America, too, and last week paleontologists officially announced a pair of such dinosaurs.

Paleontologists first heard about Unescopceratops koppelhusae and Gryphoceratops morrisoni late last year, when a pre-print version of the paper describing the dinosaurs first appeared online. The publication of the official description this month gave the obscure dinosaurs a publicity boost. As paleontologist Michael Ryan explains in the video above, both dinosaurs were already known to scientists. One was a mystery dinosaur that had been described previously, and the other had been hiding in museum collections for decades. Very little is known about these ceratopsians, so the beautiful artwork combines known aspects of the dinosaurs with pieces from more completely known relatives. The announcement of Unescoceratops and Gryphoceratops serve as a reminder that not all the horned dinosaurs were enormous bruisers.

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Riley Black is the author of The Last Days of the Dinosaurs and many other books. She is a science correspondent for Smithsonian magazine covering fossils and natural history, and she writes about the prehistoric past for a variety of publications.