Notoceratops

Notoceratops (meaning "southern horned face") is the name given to a dubious genus of dinosaur based on a toothless dentary (now lost) from the Late Cretaceous of Patagonia (in Argentina), probably dating from the Campanian and about 77 million years old.

Notoceratops
Temporal range: Late Cretaceous
Holotype mandible
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Chordata
Class:
Sauropsida
Superorder:
Dinosauria
Order:
Ornithischia
Suborder:
?Marginocephalia
Infraorder:
?Ceratopsia
Genus:
Notoceratops

Tapia, 1918
Species
  • Notoceratops bonarellii

Discovery and naming

In 1918, Augusto Tapia named the type species Notoceratops Bonarellii.[1] The generic name is derived from Greek notos, "the South", keras, "horn" and ops, "face". The specific name honours Guido Bonarelli who advised Tapia in his study of the find. By present conventions the epithet is spelled bonarellii, thus without a capital B. In many later publications the specific name is misspelled "bonarelli", with a single "i", from the incorrect assumption it would be derived from a Latinised "Bonarell~ius". The fossil, found near the Lago Colhué Huapi in Chubut, was first described by Friedrich von Huene in 1929.[2]

Phylogeny

Originally referred as a ceratopsian by Tapia in 1918, it was later dismissed because no other members of that group were known from the Southern Hemisphere. However, the recent discovery of another possible ceratopsian, Serendipaceratops, from Australia could change this view. Notoceratops has since been considered a nomen dubium and may have been a hadrosaur instead. An analysis published by Tom Rich et al. in 2014, which focused on the validity of another supposed southern ceratopsian, Serendipaceratops, also examined the published material from Notoceratops. They concluded that the holotype had ceratopsian features and that the genus is probably valid.[3]

Species

Type:

  • Notoceratops bonarellii Tapia, 1918; dentary without teeth (now lost)

Notes
  1. A. Tapia, 1918, "Una mandibula de dinosaurio procedente de Patagonia", Physis 4: 369–370
  2. F. von Huene, 1929, Los saurisquios y ornitisquios del Cretacéo Argentino. Anales del Museo de La Plata (series 3). 3, 1-196
  3. Thomas H. Rich, Benjamin P. Kear, Robert Sinclair, Brenda Chinnery, Kenneth Carpenter, Mary L. McHugh & Patricia Vickers-Rich, 2014, "Serendipaceratops arthurcclarkei Rich & Vickers-Rich, 2003 is an Australian Early Cretaceous ceratopsian", Alcheringa (advance online publication) DOI:10.1080/03115518.2014.894809
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References
  • Dodson, Peter; The Horned Dinosaurs (1996).


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