New horned dinosaurs from Utah provide evidence for intracontinental dinosaur endemism.

ABSTRACT:

Background

During much of the Late Cretaceous, a shallow, epeiric sea divided North America into eastern and western landmasses. The western landmass, known as Laramidia, although diminutive in size, witnessed a major evolutionary radiation of dinosaurs. Other than hadrosaurs (duck-billed dinosaurs), the most common dinosaurs were ceratopsids (large-bodied horned dinosaurs), currently known only from Laramidia and Asia. Remarkably, previous studies have postulated the occurrence of latitudinally arrayed dinosaur "provinces," or "biomes," on Laramidia. Yet this hypothesis has been challenged on multiple fronts and has remained poorly tested.

Methodology/principal findings

Here we describe two new, co-occurring ceratopsids from the Upper Cretaceous Kaiparowits Formation of Uta

SUBMITTER: Sampson SD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2929175 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature