Avaceratops

*Triceratops lammersi*

* Jurassic Park Institute Artwork
* Robert F Walters Artwork

**Avaceratops lammersi** was a relatively small ceratopsian dinosaur from the late Cretaceous of North America.‭ ‬What makes its classification difficult however is the fact that its neck frill is short and lacks any fenestrae‭ (‬openings‭)‬,‭ ‬and with the exception of others like Triceratops,‭ ‬ceratopsians can usually be divided into either centrosaurine or chasmosaurine groups,‭ ‬although both have fenestral openings in their frills.‭ It eats about 40 lbs of plant food. ‬This had led to Avaceratops‭ ‬being placed between these two larger groups with speculation that it may represent the ancestral form of Triceratops as well as possibly being a juvenile specimen which could account for its small body size and relatively small horns and frill. The name Avaceratops is derived from Ava Cole,‭ ‬the wife of Eddie Cole who found the first fossil remains in‭ ‬1981.‭ ‬The species name A.‭ ‬lammersi is in honour of the Lammers family who owned the land the fossils were found on.‭ ‬The fossil remains were found in what would have been a stream bed in the Cretaceous,‭ ‬and it‭’‬s thought that this dinosaur was washed there where the running water scattered the bones as it decayed.

## Description

*Avaceratops* was originally by Dodson considered to have been an exceptionally small species. He estimated the holotype length at 2.3 metres (7.5 ft) and assumed it had almost attained adult size. However, the second skull, MOR 692, indicates a body length of 4.2 metres (14 ft). Paul in 2010 estimated the weight of a four-metre-long animal at one tonne. Another change in the image of *Avaceratops* brought about by MOR 692 concerned the brow horns. These were first thought to be rather short, although this was purely speculative, the holotype not having preserved them. The new skull showed postorbital horn cores with a length of 25 centimetres (9.8 in).

*Avaceratops* has a distinctive frill at the back of the skull. The squamosal, the element at the front of the frill side, is large with a continuously curving instead of a stepped edge. A raised area at the base of the squamosal divides it into two equal halves, whereas more derived species have an enlarged top part. The squamosal is separated from the parietal bone at the rear of the skull by a small indentation. The parietals however, show no indentation at the midline of the frill rear. Also the parietals are probably lacking fenestrae which are typical of many other genera except *Triceratops*, resulting in a solid frill, although damage to the holotype allows for a small opening to be present.

## Discovery and naming

The first remains of *Avaceratops* were found by fossil dealer Eddie Cole in the Judith River Formation of Montana, in 1981, on land of the Careless Creek Ranch, owned by rancher Arthur J. Lammers. They were preserved scattered throughout the remains of a prehistoric stream bed. This *Avaceratops* specimen was likely buried in the sandbar after its body was swept downstream by the current. The finds, displayed in Cole's fossil shop, were in October 1981 inspected by Peter Dodson who in July 1982 during a visit with Cole to the site discovered additional bones, which from 1984 were excavated by Anthony Fiorillo.

The fossil was formally named and described by Dodson in 1986, as the type species *Avaceratops lammersi*. It was the first ceratopsid named since *Pachyrhinosaurus* in 1950. The genus was named after Ava Cole, Eddie's wife. The specific epithet honors the Lammers family. In 1990 George Olshevsky emended the name to *A. lammersorum*, with the specific name in the genitive plural because it referred to several persons. However, Dodson objected against this change, arguing the genitive singular might also refer to a single family name.

The holotype, ANSP 15800, consists of a partial skeleton containing the lower skull, a left lower jaw, vertebrae, a complete shoulder girdle and most elements of forelimbs and hindlimbs. The type specimen might represent a juvenile or a subadult individual, Dodson in 1986 being inclined to consider it almost fully grown. Kenneth Carpenter made a reconstruction of the skull, a cast of which was by Leroy Glenn combined with restored parts of the postcranial skeleton to create a mount that in 1986 was displayed in the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia; a copy of this skeletal mount was donated to the Upper Musselshell Valley Historical Museum in Harlowton.[2] In 1993 Paul Penkalski referred two earlier found squamosals to *Avaceratops*, USNM 4802 and USNM 2415, of larger individuals. In 1999 Penkalski and Dodson described a second skull, MOR 692, again of a larger individual. This specimen includes the upper skull, with the nose and brow horns.

In 1990 Thomas Lehman renamed *A. lammersi* into *Monoclonius lammersi*; in 2010 the species was by Gregory S. Paul renamed into *Centrosaurus lammersi*. Both alternative names have found no acceptance.

## Classification

*Avaceratops* was by Dodson in 1986 assigned to the Ceratopsidae within the Ceratopsia (both names being derived from Ancient Greek for 'horned face'), a group of herbivorous dinosaurs with parrot-like beaks which thrived in what are now North America and Asia, during the Cretaceous Period.

Apart from being a ceratopsian, little is certain about *Avaceratops's* taxonomic position. Because most of the skeleton is only known from a juvenile, and juveniles tend to express ancestral traits more strongly, a cladistic analysis would likely indicate a too basal, low, position in the evolutionary tree. For this reason, *Avaceratops* has often been excluded from such analyses. Penkalski and Dodson in 1999 concluded that *Avaceratops* most likely occupied a basal position within the Centrosaurinae but that it was also possible it was a basal member of the Ceratopsinae or just outside the clade formed by both groups. A phylogenetic analysis performed by Sampson et al. (2013) found that *Avaceratops* was the sister taxon of the new genus *Nasutoceratops*, described and named in 2013. This clade containing both *Avaceratops* and *Nasutoceratops* was named the Nasutoceratopsini in 2016.

The cladogram presented below follows a phylogenetic analysis by Chiba *et al.* (2017):

## Paleobiology

*Avaceratops*, like all ceratopsians, was a herbivore. During the Cretaceous, flowering plants were "geographically limited on the landscape", so it is likely that this dinosaur fed on the predominant plants of the era: ferns, cycads and conifers. It would have used its sharp ceratopsian beak to bite off the leaves or needles. The habitat of *Avaceratops* was heavily forested and wet.

## JPInstitute.com Description

Avaceratops looks like a small version of the famous Triceratops. Like many dinosaur discoveries, not much of it was found. In fact, scientists only found part of its skull and a little of the skeleton behind its head.

This small ceratopsian is known from a single partial skeleton. It was small but had a moderately heavy build. Avaceratops had a short, deep snout with a thick and powerful lower jaw. The neck frill was solid. It is believed that this ceratopsian did not have very large brow horns. Most of its closest relatives had a large nose horn and no brow horns. Some feel that the type specimen is a juvenile, or possibly a young adult. It is considered a primitive ceratopsian.

It was found in 1981 by two amateur paleontologists, Ed and Ava Cole and it was named after Ava. It is an example of the important contributions that non-scientists can make to paleontology. This skeleton is now on display at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia.

## Appearance in other media

### *Jurassic Park*

* Avaceratops appeared in the Jurassic World toys.

## Links

http://web.archive.org/web/20031006003407/http://www.jpinstitute.com/dinopedia/dinocards/dc\_avace.html

## References

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