Leptoceratops

Scrapped Male concept art by Chris Masnaghetti

*"With some leeway allowed for preservation bias, we will be focusing on the animals and plants found in this location. This means that animals only found in Wyoming, Montana or North Dakota will not be featured, nor those from only the lower rocks of Hell Creek (such as Leptoceratops)."*

― *Saurian: A Field Guide to Hell Creek*

***Leptoceratops*** is an extinct genus of ceratopsian dinosaurs from the late Cretaceous Period (late Maastrichtian age, 66.8-66 Ma ago) of what is now Western North America. Their skulls have been found in Alberta, Canada and Wyoming.

Though *Leptoceratops* was 6 to 9 feet (2 to 2.7 meters) long, it was only 2 to 3 feet (0.6 to 0.9 meters) high at the hips and weighted between 150 and 440 lbs (68 and 200 kilograms).

This long, low-slung animal browsed on ground cover and other low plants like cycads and ferns. The jaws were relatively short and deep and the jaw muscles would have inserted over the large parietosquamosal frill, giving *Leptoceratops* a powerful bite. The teeth are unusual in that the dentary teeth have dual wear facets, with a vertical wear facet where the maxillary teeth sheared past the crown, and a horizontal wear facet where the maxillary teeth crushed against the dentary teeth. This shows that *Leptoceratops* chewed with a combination of shearing and crushing. Between the shearing/crushing action of the teeth and the powerful jaws, *Leptoceratops* was probably able to chew tough plant matter.

*Leptoceratops*'s front legs were shorter than its hind legs, leading to reasoning that it might have been able to stand or even walk on its hind legs, either for the purpose of reaching up for food sources, or running at speed, similar in fashion to how hadrosaur movement is interpreted. Currently, it is believed that *Leptoceratops* was perfectly capable to walk and stand just on four legs, and probably alternated between quadrupedality and bipedality.

*Leptoceratops* had a very large head for its body size, and the skull often survives more easily as a fossil. *Leptoceratops* also had a beaklike snout and a smallish neck frill. It did not sport the dramatic horns and large neck frills that are common in its more advanced and better-known relatives, such as *Triceratops*.

*Leptoceratops* lived much later than these ancestral forms as indicated by its entry into the fossil record at a time which would have seen *Leptoceratops* living in the same locations as the much larger *Triceratops*, in western North America between 67 million and 66 million years ago. This would suggest that while the ceratopsians descended into large quadrupedal herbivores, there was still an ecological niche where the more primitive ceratopsian body plan could still thrive.

As an individual, *Leptoceratops*, a smallish herbivore, may have been quite vulnerable to the formidable predators of the Cretaceous period like juvenile *Tyrannosaurus* and maybe even *Acheroraptor*. Its' best defense was likely just to run, although, to fight off an *Acheroraptor*, for example, it may have used its formidable bite, which would've broke bones, reminding the theories behind the brawls between *Protoceratops* and *Velociraptor**.*

## In *Saurian*

*Leptoceratops* was meant to appear in *Saurian* before it was scrapped. It was to be portrayed with scales and osteoderms running down the length of the body. Its' color was meant to be green with brown and stripes spots and a white underbelly to match its' habitat and a pink neck in males for sexual display.

## Behind the scenes

In the first design by Alex "Doc" Lewko, the *Leptoceratops* was a mixture of white and black with light blue striping on the tail and its frill. This design also featured bristle-like feathers running down its neck down to the tip of the tail, with the quills on the tail being the largest.

*Leptoceratops* was later redesigned by Chris Masnaghetti. During the redesign, *Leptoceratops* lost its quills, became quadrupedal, and became sexually dimorphic.

As of April 13, 2016, the *Leptoceratops* had "progressed nicely" and project leader Nick Turinetti wrote to expect a reveal of the model of *Leptoceratops* in the near future.

It was then later revealed that *Leptoceratops* was scrapped, because it wasn't found in the particular time period and place that *Saurian* takes place in.

## Notes and references

1. ↑ Turinetti, Nick. (April 17, 2016) April 13th Livestream: The Aftermath. *Saurian* Website. Retrieved September 14, 2016.