page_title: Yehuecauhceratops
section_title: Paleoecology
hierarchical_section_title: Yehuecauhceratops / Paleoecology
caption_attribution_description: English: Fig 1. Centrosaurine Biogeography- The Campanian centrosaurine distribution showing that the vast majority of diagnosable Campanian centrosaurines are from northern Laramidia and that the record of southern centrosaurines is sparse. Figure based on Sampson et al. Individual centrosaurine drawings were redrawn, but based on Brown and Schlaikjer (Styracosaurus), Langston (Pachyrhinosaurus), Sampson (Einiosaurus, Achelousaurus), Penkalski and Dodson (Avaceratops), Ryan and Russell (Coronosaurus, Centrosaurus), Ryan (Albertaceratops), Kirkland and DeBlieux (Diabloceratops), McDonald and Horner (Rubeosaurus), Farke et al. (Spinops), Ryan et al. (Xenoceratops), Sampson et al. (Nasutoceratops), and Evans and Ryan (Wendiceratops).
context_page_description: Yehuecauhceratops is a genus of horned centrosaurine ceratopsid dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of Coahuila, Mexico. It contains a single species, Y. mudei, described from two partial specimens by Rivera-Sylva et al. in 2016 and formally named by Rivera-Sylva et al. in 2017. It was a small centrosaurine with a body length of 3 metres, making it smaller than Agujaceratops and Coahuilaceratops, the other two ceratopsids in its environment; the three may have been ecologically segregated. A ridge bearing a single roughened projection near the bottom of the squamosal bone, which probably supported a small horn, allows Yehuecauhceratops to be distinguished from other centrosaurines. Its affinities to nasutoceratopsin centrosaurines, such as Avaceratops and Nasutoceratops, are supported by various morphological similarities to the former.
context_section_description: The environment Yehuecauhceratops lived in, corresponding to the lower part of the upper Aguja Formation, would have been a freshwater-to-brackish coastal marsh and floodplain that were part of a river delta. Sediments also record the presence of oxbow lakes and some coastal marine deposits. Although the Mexican strata of the Aguja Formation have not been solidly dated, dating of other deposits belonging to the Aguja and the contemporary Cerro del Pueblo Formations has produced date ranges that overlap around 72.5 Ma. In Mexico, the diversity of animals in the Aguja Formation is somewhat limited. Asides from Yehuecauhceratops, other discovered remains include the chasmosaurine Agujaceratops mavericus, pachycephalosaur teeth; large tibiae from hadrosaurids; crocodilian teeth; and shell fragments from baenid and trionychid turtles.
  From contemporaneous deposits of the Aguja Formation in Texas, numerous dinosaurs are known; they include the chasmosaurine Agujaceratops mariscalensis, the saurolophine Kritosaurus, the pachycephalosaur Texacephale, and the tooth taxon Richardoestesia, as well as unnamed lambeosaurines, nodosaurs, tyrannosaurs, ornithomimids, caenagnathids, and dromaeosaurs. Non-dinosaurs include the giant alligatoroid Deinosuchus and a goniopholidid; the squamates Odaxosaurus, Proxestops, Restes, Sauriscus, and various unnamed taxa; the turtles "Baena" and "Aspideretes", as well as an additional chelonian; the amphibians Albanerpeton, a scapherpetonid, a salamander, and a frog; the mammals Cimolomys, Meniscoessus, Cimolodon, Alphadon, Turgidodon, Pediomys, Gallolestes, and others; various bony fish; and the cartilaginous fish Hybodus, Lissodus, Scapanorhynchys, Onchopristis, Ischyrhiza, Squatirhina, Ptychotrygon, and others.
  Although ceratopsids are very common in Laramidian deposits north of Colorado, there are very few of them from the south, and even fewer of them actually preserve any diagnostic material. Centrosaurines, despite their limited material, appeared to have been somewhat more common in the south. However, several chasmosaurines are also known from Mexico, namely Agujaceratops mavericus and Coahuilaceratops magnacuerna (from the Cerro de Pueblo Formation). This is consistent with a likely climate-related separation of flora between the northern and southern parts of Laramidia during the Campanian. Particularly, in the Texan Aguja Formation, dicotyledons Metcalfeoxylon and Agujoxylon were predominant. In contrast, coniferous plants are more abundant in northern regions. Within the Aguja fauna, Yehuecauhceratops was relatively small compared to the giant Coahuilaceratops, with Agujaceratops in between; this suggests some level of size-based diet partitioning among the three ceratopsids.
caption: Centrosaurine remains superimposed over a map of Campanian North America; Yehuecauhceratops (CPC 274) at bottom
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