''Unescoceratops'' is a

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

of leptoceratopsid

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 ...

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic Geological period, period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the #Evolutio ...

s known from the

Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the more recent of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''cre ...

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 ...

, southern

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. It contains a single species, ''Unescoceratops koppelhusae''.

Discovery

''Unescoceratops'' is known only from the

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 95.12.6, a partial left

dentary In jawed vertebrates, the mandible (from the Latin ''mandibula'', 'for chewing'), lower jaw, or jawbone is a bone that makes up the lowerand typically more mobilecomponent of the mouth (the upper jaw being known as the maxilla). The jawbone ...

. The fossil was collected in 1995 in the Black Coulee locality (formerly Deadhorse Coulee), near the

Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park is located about southeast of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada, or east of the community of Milk River, and straddles the Milk River itself. It is one of the largest areas of protected prairie in the Alberta park s ...

, from the

Dinosaur Park Formation The Dinosaur Park Formation is the uppermost member of the Belly River Group (also known as the Judith River Group), a major geologic unit in southern Alberta. It was deposited during the Campanian stage of the Late Cretaceous, between about 7 ...

, dating to the late

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

period, about 76.5-75

million years ago Million years ago, abbreviated as Mya, Myr (megayear) or Ma (megaannum), is a unit of time equal to (i.e. years), or approximately 31.6 teraseconds. Usage Myr is in common use in fields such as Earth science and cosmology. Myr is also used w ...

. The specimen was regarded as too incomplete to identify, and was shelved for several years. It was believed to be a ''Leptoceratops'' specimen at the time. A

cladistic Cladistics ( ; from Ancient Greek 'branch') is an approach to biological classification in which organisms are categorized in groups ("clades") based on hypotheses of most recent common ancestry. The evidence for hypothesized relationships is ...

analysis done by Michael Ryan (of The Cleveland Museum of Natural History) and David Evans (of the

Royal Ontario Museum The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is a museum of art, world culture and natural history in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is one of the largest museums in North America and the largest in Canada. It attracts more than one million visitors every year ...

) found it to be among the most advanced leptoceratopsid genera.

Description

''Unescoceratops'' is thought to have been between one and two meters long and less than 91 kilograms. Its teeth were the roundest of all leptoceratopsids. Mallon et al. (2013) examined herbivore coexistence on the island continent of

Laramidia Laramidia was an island continent that existed during the Late Cretaceous period (99.6–66 Year#SI prefix multipliers, Ma), when the Western Interior Seaway split the continent of North America in two. In the Mesozoic era, Laramidia was an island ...

, during the Late Cretaceous. It was concluded that small ornithischians like ''Unescoceratops'' were generally restricted to feeding on vegetation at, or below the height of 1 meter.

Etymology

The genus ''Unescoceratops'' was first described by Michael J. Ryan,

David C. Evans David, Dave, or Dai Evans may refer to: Academics * Sir David Emrys Evans (1891–1966), Welsh classicist and university principal * David Evans (microbiologist) (1909–1984), British microbiologist * David Stanley Evans (1916–2004), Britis ...

, Philip J. Currie, Caleb M. Brown and Don Brinkman in

2012 2012 was designated as: *International Year of Cooperatives *International Year of Sustainable Energy for All Events January *January 4 – The Cicada 3301 internet hunt begins. * January 12 – Peaceful protests begin in the R ...

(though it had been published earlier by Ryan and Currie in 1995 with no name) and the

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

is ''Unescoceratops koppelhusae''. The generic name means "

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

horned face", in reference to the fossil being found in an area designated as a

World Heritage Site World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...

by the organization. "' Dinosaurprovincialparkaceratops' was too long," explained Ryan. The specific epithet is named after Currie's wife, palynologist Eva Koppelhus.

Classification

''Unescoceratops'' has been classified as a leptoceratopsid and the sister taxa to '' Gryphoceratops'', which was described in the same paper. These two are the most derived leptoceratopsids known, despite ''Gryphoceratops'' also being the oldest leptoceratopsid. The cladogram below represents the cladistic relationship of ''Unescoceratops'' compared to other

leptoceratopsids Leptoceratopsidae is an extinct family of neoceratopsian dinosaurs from Asia, North America and possibly Europe. Leptoceratopsids resembled, and were closely related to, other neoceratopsians, such as the families Protoceratopsidae and Ceratopsid ...

as reconstructed from the phylogenetic analysis.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1933675 Leptoceratopsidae Dinosaur genera Campanian dinosaurs Dinosaur Park Formation Taxa named by David C. Evans Taxa named by Philip J. Currie Fossil taxa described in 2012 Dinosaurs of Canada

Discovery

Description

Etymology

Classification

See also

References