page_title: Yehuecauhceratops
section_title: Cranial material
hierarchical_section_title: Yehuecauhceratops / Description / Cranial material
caption_attribution_description: English: Fig 5. CPC 274 Parietal - One parietal fragment of CPC 274 in both front and back views (A, B) showing one of the parietal undulations. Scale = 10 cm.
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 squamosal of Yehuecauhceratops is the only element that allows it to be confidently distinguished from other ceratopsids. It has a stepped edge on its border with the parietal, which is characteristic of all centrosaurines. Unlike more derived centrosaurines like Styracosaurus, Centrosaurus, and Pachyrhinosaurus, but more similarly to Avaceratops, the squamosal is longer than it is wide. The expanded rear portion of the squamosal is twice the length of the rest of the bone. At its top margin, the squamosal contributed to the outline of the supratemporal fenestra, the slit in the frill base.
  Along the outer edge of the squamosal, there are three prominent undulations that probably supported epiossifications, although the epiossifications themselves are missing. The second undulation is deflected slightly upwards like more derived centrosaurines. In Wendiceratops and more derived centrosaurines, however, there are at least four or five undulations, instead of three. There is a ridge running across the squamosal near the bottom of the bone; it is less prominent than in Nasutoceratops, and does not extend onto the fan-like back of the bone. Unlike Avaceratops, Wendiceratops, and Albertaceratops, the three smooth protuberances along the ridge are missing; instead, there is only one roughened protuberance near the middle of the ridge, which probably supported a small horn. These two characteristics, the position of the ridge and the single protuberance, are the autapomorphies of Yehuecauhceratops, traits allowing it to be distinguished from other centrosaurines.
  Judging by the fragments of the parietal, it was a relatively smooth bone. The largest and most thickened pieces, which originate from near the centre of the frill, suggest that Yehuecauhceratops probably had relatively small fenestrae, in contrast to most other centrosaurines but not to Avaceratops. A parietal epiossification is preserved; it has a simple, crescent-shaped edge, not unlike the squamosal undulations in terms of its shape, and its surface is roughened. Like Diabloceratops, Avaceratops, Xenoceratops, and Nasutoceratops, this epiossification is not immediately adjacent to or overlapped by another epiossification; instead, there is an inward undulation in the bone right next to the epiossification.
  A portion of the premaxilla contains the edge of the nostril; a ridge extending diagonally across the bone is, like that of Diabloceratops, more prominent than that of Avaceratops. The interior surface of the bone was roughened save for the top portion surrounding the nostril, which is also the thickest part of the bone. A piece of the dentary likely comes from the rear third of the jaw, judging by the presence of the coronoid process of the mandible. It preserves a row of teeth, containing six tooth sockets with three fully erupted teeth, that was offset towards the midline of the animal from the centre of the bone.
caption: Parietal fragment
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