''Gremlin'' (named after the mythical creature of the same name) is a genus of leptoceratopsid

ceratopsia Ceratopsia or Ceratopia ( or ; Ancient Greek, Greek: "horned faces") is a group of herbivore, herbivorous, beaked dinosaurs that thrived in what are now North America, Asia and Europe, during the Cretaceous Period (geology), Period, although ance ...

n dinosaurs from the

Campanian The Campanian is the fifth of six ages of the Late Cretaceous epoch on the geologic timescale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). In chronostratigraphy, it is the fifth of six stages in the Upper Cretaceous Series. Campa ...

stage of the

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 143.1 to 66 mya (unit), million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era (geology), Era, as well as the longest. At around 77.1 million years, it is the ...

period, 77 million years ago. It contains one species, ''Gremlin slobodorum'', named in 2023 by Michael J. Ryan and colleagues from a found in the

Oldman Formation The Oldman Formation is a stratigraphic unit of Late Cretaceous (Campanian stage) age that underlies much of southern Alberta, Canada. It consists primarily of sandstones that were deposited in fluvial channel and floodplain environments. It was ...

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

. It can be distinguished from other leptoceratopsids by a ridge on the frontal that runs transversely from the midline of the skull outwards to the top end of the .

Discovery and naming

The ''Gremlin''

holotype A holotype (Latin: ''holotypus'') is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of s ...

specimen, TMP 2011.053.0027, was discovered in sediments of the

in southern Alberta, Canada. The specimen consists of an isolated right which has lost portions of its anterolateral margin, possibly due to erosion. In a 2022 conference abstract authored by L. Micucci and colleagues, they tentatively referred the specimen to ''

Cerasinops ''Cerasinops'' (meaning 'cherry face') was a small ceratopsian dinosaur. It lived during the Campanian of the late Cretaceous Period. Its fossils have been found in Two Medicine Formation, in Montana. The type species of the genus ''Cerasinops'' ...

'' since its holotype was found in rock layers of a similar age. In 2023, Ryan and colleagues described ''Gremlin slobodorum'' as a new genus and species of leptoceratopsid based on these fossil remains. The generic name, "''

Gremlin A gremlin is a mischievous fictional creature invented at the beginning of the 20th century to originally explain malfunctions in aircraft, and later in other machinery, processes, and their operators. Depictions of these creatures vary widely. ...

''", refers to the small troublesome mythical creatures of the same name. The

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

, "''slobodorum''", honors Ed and Wendy Sloboda who have contributed to paleontology in Canada and were involved in the holotype's discovery.

Classification

Ryan ''et al''. (2023) recovered ''Gremlin'' as a non- coronosaurian

ceratopsian Ceratopsia or Ceratopia ( or ; Greek: "horned faces") is a group of herbivorous, beaked dinosaurs that thrived in what are now North America, Asia and Europe, during the Cretaceous Period, although ancestral forms lived earlier, in the Late Ju ...

using the dataset of Arbour and Evans (2019). Their

phylogenetic analyses In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as Computational phylogenetics, phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organ ...

recovered an unresolved

polytomy An internal node of a phylogenetic tree is described as a polytomy or multifurcation if (i) it is in a rooted tree and is linked to three or more child subtrees or (ii) it is in an unrooted tree and is attached to four or more branches. A tree ...

of most leptoceratopsids and some other similar dinosaurs at the base of the Coronosauria, with the leptoceratopsids ''

Gryphoceratops ''Gryphoceratops'' is an extinct genus of leptoceratopsid ceratopsian dinosaur known from the Late Cretaceous of Alberta, southern Canada. Discovery ''Gryphoceratops'' is known only from the holotype ROM 56635, a partial right dentary. Th ...

'' and ''

Unescoceratops ''Unescoceratops'' is a genus of leptoceratopsid ceratopsian dinosaurs known from the Late Cretaceous of Alberta, southern Canada. It contains a single species, ''Unescoceratops koppelhusae''. Discovery ''Unescoceratops'' is known only from th ...

'' recovered as

sister taxa In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree. Definition The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram: Taxon A and ...

. The results of their phylogenetic analyses are displayed in the

cladogram A cladogram (from Greek language, Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an Phylogenetic tree, evolutionary tree because it does not s ...

below.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q123478349 Leptoceratopsidae Dinosaur species Campanian dinosaurs Oldman Formation Taxa named by David C. Evans Fossil taxa described in 2023 Dinosaurs of Canada