Protoceratops

From EvoWiki

Protoceratops ("First horned face") was an early horned dinosaur that lived during the Cretaceous Period about 80 million years ago in what is now Mongolia. In life, this dinosaur would have been about the size of a large dog, such as a Great Dane, and measures about 8 feet long, including tail. This dinosaur is known to have had a large neck frill made of a bony frame that was covered with a thick sheet of skin to make the head lighter and much easy to moved around. Although it had no horns, in some skulls, suggested to be those of old males, the dinosaur is shown to have a very small spike growing on the tips of its snout. Males may have had that feature to help defend themselves against enemies and to intimidate rivals.

Protoceratops is famous for its 1922 discovery in Mongolia in an expedition lead by Roy Chapman Andrews who became the first person to find traces of dinosaur nesting grounds as well as confirm the notion that, like most other reptiles, dinosaurs lay eggs when he and his men saw nests containing fossilized eggs shaped like potatoes. They also have discovered remains of Protoceratops in numerous life stages, rangingfrom hatchlings to adults. This inspired a exhibit seen at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City where visitors can see a row of heads of Protoceratops staging a growth rate from Hatchling to an adult in the Hall of the Ornithschian section.

Protoceratops was a herding dinosaur that lived in herds for protection. As with other Ornithschian dinosaurs, it also was a herbivore meaning that it ate plants with its sharp curved beak that snipped off even the toughest plants and chewed them with its strong, sharp, rigid teeth.

Protoceratops belonged to a group of dinosaurs called Ceratopsia, plant eating dinosaurs with horns on their faces and frills of their necks including Triceratops, Styracosaurus, Avaceratops, and Centrosaurus.

In 1971, in a Polish-Mongolian expedition, scientists unearthed a remarkable find. They found 2 dinosaur fossil remains of Protoceratops and the dromaeosaurid Velociraptor that died while locked in mortal combat. Velociraptor must have been kicking the underbelly of Protoceratops with its menacing claws while holding on to its frill with one hand and Protoceratops must have bitten the other hand of Velociraptor with it's sharp beak when both fossils were smothered by a sand dune during a sandstorm that quickly buried them both in the sand, 80 million years ago.