A Zuniceratops wanders a Cretaceous forest

A 10 foot long, 250 pound Zuniceratops wanders a Cretaceous forest 90 million years ago in what is today New Mexico. Like the better known and larger Triceratops, Zuniceratops was a Ceratopsid, a family of four-legged plant-eating dinosaurs characterized by beaks, rows of shearing teeth in the back of the jaw, and elaborate horns and frills. While they resemble defensive shields, the frills are in fact relatively fragile, suggesting that they may have served a purpose other than protecting against a brute force attack. One possibility is that the frills were employed as visual displays in order to intimidate rivals and attract the opposite sex

Beak Cerapoda Ceratopsia Ceratopsid Frill Grazing Horned Megafauna Ornithischia Roaming Turonian Woodlands Zuniceratops

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