Achelousaurus: Paper Edition

Achelousaurus is not a really heavily written about Centrosaurine, though it cannot be said that nothing has been written about it in relation to other Centrosaurines or even in papers by itself. Finding such material is a little more difficult, but it is not entirely absent from the world. Some of the most interesting things anyone can read are about skull shape, when it comes to Ceratopsids in general, and Achelousaurus is no different in that respect. The Royal Tyrell's Ceratopsid symposium, from which the book that houses many of the papers cited in the last couple of Ceratopsians mentioned here, did an absolutely fantastic job of pulling together a lot of Ceratopsian research and publishing it is a single hardcover book was a very good idea on someone's part. I just need to get a copy of it some time.

Achelousaurs' Other Movies

Yesterday I shared Dinosaur King and how to draw videos of Achelousaurus. I almost wiped out all of the video resources for Movie Monday by doing so yesterday. There are no new documentaries or kiddy movies that show Achelousaurus, probably because it is hard enough to pronounce it anyhow and because there have not been many feature length films about dinosaurs in a few years. Documentaries have barely, as we know, hit the tip of the iceberg on dinosaur species, so we typically do not expect the dinosaur of the week to have featured heavily in any documentaries unless it is a big name dino that has been popular for quite some time. One Youtube poster has designed a very short animation that we can view and another, named Rob Mutch, has filmed the skull cast on display in the Museum of the Rockies. There is also a SPORE contribution, but I will save featuring that until Thursday.

Juvenile Achelousaurus for Juvenile Humans

There are a few good resources today. Science for Kids has a small fact page that is child friendly; we always like to see those on a Sunday morning. Additionally, though there is no Dinosaur Train episode which features Achelousaurus, there is a good deal of information and resources associated with Dinosaur King, which has not been true for the past few dinosaurs. Therefore, any young card player that is intrigued by the Dinosaur King slant on the dinosaurs we look at should be happy today. 4KidsTV hosts the episode of Dinosaur King in which Achelousaurus makes its debut as well. I rarely get to find the actual episodes that feature the dinosaurs we are speaking about during any given week when it comes to Dinosaur King (Dinosaur Train is a different story of course) so I am quite happy to be able to share the link to the episode with Achelousaurus. In terms of coloring pages, there are two ways to get pages to color this weekend. One is to draw it yourself, if you are any good at following drawing tutorials; I am terrible at trying to follow those drawing tutorial things. Either that or you can print and color this adaptation of Mariana Ruiz's image shared on Friday:

Images of Later Centrosaurines

©Rescast International

The skull of Achelousaurus possesses three dense bone groupings along the nasal, some of the frontal, and the supraorbital ridge. The nasal ridge is always depicted as a shield like protuberance or a straight up jutting protuberance of horn, but given the evolutionary trends of the Centrosaurine family, specifically the reduction of brow horns while a tall nasal horn was becoming prominent and then reduction of the height and an exaggeration of the forward sloping of the nasal horn, most prominent in Einiosaurus, this nasal boss could be then, in part, a horn core for a nasal horn that is in the last vestiges of the forward facing prominence found in Einiosaurus, especially because of the perceived close relationship of Einiosaurus and Achelousaurus. It is rarely shown as such, but I think that the end of the nasal bone structures may have supported at least a tiny horn which jutted straight forward off of the nasal bone, almost like a digging horn or the adornments found on male narwhals rather than just a dense patch of bone.

©Nobu Tamura

Most depictions of Achelousaurus show that nasal ridge as a boss of dense bone, which may indeed be correct and is obviously the most popular interpretation. The eye-brow ridge, or suprorbital ridge, bone is certainly dense and unless the alternate theory of Pachyrhinosaurus horns jutting from dense bone material is applied, then the dense ridges of bone are merely a shield like covering over the eyes much like we would find in the extremely thick domes of Pachycephalosaurs which leads to one solid theory for these ridges: Centrosaurines, once the evolutionary trend of horn reduction had been taken this far in later Centrosaurines that they possessed only thick areas of bone where horns once were, had changed from piercing defensive weapons/rival intimidators to headbutters like modern goats, though obviously much larger. We would then probably expect to see more of an ability in the hips to rear, like goats, or more power at the very least to sprint into a rival or predator, meaning that the cow-like structure of the body may need to be altered a bit.

©Mineo Shiraishi

One thing that certainly did not change, in terms of evolutionary trends (I put together a presentation for a posters and presentation class I am taking for my MS on Centrosaurine evolutionary trends, so I apologize for the heavy use of that phrase this week!) is that the parietosquamosal frill is still quite well adorned. The peak of Centrosaurine frill design, arguably, is the ostentatious frill which is exemplified by Styracosaurus with its lightweight protection and multiple spikes all along the ridge of the frill. Achelousaurus has a much simpler frill design, but it is still considered an adorned frill. The two spikes at the apex of the frill are standard for all Centrosaurines save a few (Centrosaurus, Coronosaurus, which used to be a Centrosaurus species until recently). Frills of the Centrosaurines are truly works of art. This is a little more minimalist in its approach than other Centrosaurines, but it is still a wonderful looking animal.

Achelous' Lizard

©Mariana Ruiz (edits by Michael B.H.)

Achelousaurus. Achelous' Lizard. Strangely named, considering that Achelous is a minor deity of the Greek pantheon and the remains of Achelousaurus were discovered in Montana in the Two Medicine Formation and described in 1995 by Scott Sampson. Achelousaurus was approximately 20 feet (6m) long and weighed an estimated 3 tonnes. Achelousaurus was a Centrosaurine dinosaur and as such was smaller than a Chasmosaurine, like Triceratops, but larger than Protoceratopsians, like Protoceratops. Being a Centrosaurine, Achelousaurus possessed an adorned parietal frill with two large spines forming from the parietal and dense bones over the eye where earlier Centrosaurines possessed supraorbital horncores and another area of dense bone over the nasal bone in place of the extremely large nasal horncores of other earlier Centrosaurines. Achelosaurus was one of the last of the Centrosaurines and marks the near pinnacle of the family's evolutionary tree. It is closely related, perhaps not directly, to Einiosaurus and Pachyrhinosaurus, older and younger Centrosaurines respectively. So far three skulls have been unearthed from the Two Medicine Formation, which makes study of Achelousaurus a little more comprehensive, as multiple samples of any skeleton will do, and means that our understanding of Achelousaurus is that much more in depth.

Microvenator: Popularly Forgotten

Microvenator is a popular little dinosaur, unfortunately it is not as popular in the mainstream culture as it is within paleontology. In paleontology it is an important little animal that tells a lot, despite its small size and missing bones, about the dinosaurs which are nested before and after it in evolutionary terms. Microvenator sits in a wonderful little spot in its family tree right at the end of the Caenagnathid  branch but right at the start of the Oviraptorid branch. This relationship between the two, though it is not illustrated as a "for sure" link between the two, allows for a lot of recognition of characters from each subfamily within Microvenator's bones, which, in a way, makes it a sort of missing link between the two groups. A subsequent find of a nearly complete, or more complete, skeleton of Microvenator would have an enormous impact on the study of the animal itself as well as both the Caenagnathidae and the Oviraptorosauria. Let us hope that someday someone will find a nearly complete, maybe even a complete (I do not think we should hope for more, like a mummified find, though it would be remarkable and quite a boon)

A Lot of Bones And A Small Dinosaur

Despite lacking almost half (47%) of its characters, Microvenator's type specimen is composed of a large number of bones from all over the body of the animal. Many of these bones are fragmentary or are small parts of larger skeletal apparatuses (such as metacarpals or single disarticulated vertebrae) and thus do not provide much of the greater picture or the defining characters of the animal. The jaw, as discussed, is such an incomplete sliver of the animal that it has been interpreted multiple ways; chiefly as either overtly Oviraptoran or completely Maniraptoran in appearance. To add confusion, initially, to the problematic shape of the lone skull fragment, Barnum Brown included what were later discovered to be Deinonychus teeth as examples of Microvenator teeth. We of course know that this is not true now that we know they belong to Deinonychus, but it leaves us with questions about whether Microvenator had teeth, as a transitional early Maniraptoran or a toothless beak as a primitive Oviraptoran dinosaur. The hands, as opposed to the jaw fragment, are reminiscent of later Oviraptorids as well as possessing characters from earlier Caenagnathids, lending more credence to the thought that this animal is a basal ancestor of the Oviraptorids. This may in turn lead to more definitive structuring of the jaw elements, though further concrete discoveries of Microvenator skulls would be infinitely preferable in terms of accurately describing the structure of Microvenator's skull. Hopefully sometime in the future an entire Microvenator will be discovered or at least weather out and be noticed somewhere along the Cloverly where the initial discovery was made by Brown in 1933, but until that time we will have to cope with an apparent lack of material to support the existence of this rather small, and primitive, Oviraptorid/advanced Caenagnathid.

Sues Again!

Hans-Dieter Sues is a prolific writer; no one can really argue with that. I think we feature some paper he has at least co-authored on a fairly regular basis each week here. This week, though, he has teamed up with Peter Makovicky to discuss anatomy and phylogenetic relationships of Microvenator. Granted this is a little older, 1998 when Makovicky was still a graduate student, it still does quite a bit for our understanding of how and where Microvenator fits into the family of Oviraptorids as well as geologically where it fits into the timeline of life compared to other dinosaurs. Makovicky and Sues provide an in depth look at the reexamined Microvenator and come to the conclusion that Microvenator has even more in common with the Oviraptorids than Ostrom thought. They do caution, however, that a whopping 47% of characters are unknown for Microvenator at the time of their study, and probably still close to that today, and as such there is a great deal of movement of the animal in phylogenetic groupings possible. Mark Wilkinson addressed, in 1995, three years earlier, the missing characters in a wider reaching article on how to rely on results even with large amounts of missing characters. A small number of characters for Microvenator were presented in a table within the article and the overall message of the article is obviously important for other dinosaurs as well that are missing larger proportions of their identifying taxonomic characters. Sadly, to this point, I have not taken any systematics classes and so some of these things are clearly, at the moment, lost on me, but I hope to remedy that soon.

Motionless Microvenator

Microvenator, for some reason or another, has not shown its face in any documentaries, kid's shows, cartoons, movies, short films, commercials, television shows, or flipbooks that have been posted online as videos. In fact, it does not even show up for more than a brief moment in a tribute video dedicated to Oviraptorids as a clade. This extreme lack of resources leads to a rather unique issue; we have absolutely nothing at all to share on this dinosaur on Movie Monday. I think this has happened to this extreme perhaps twice in my recorded knowledge, which is quite amazing really. In place of that I offer a look at the ilia of Microvenator compared to other described Oviraptorids and I have borrowed the caption from Jaime Headden, who I think deserves credit for the image in this form as well.

©Jaime A. Headden

 From Jaime's caption of the above image:

Preserved pelvis of several North American oviraptorosaurians. A, RTMP 79.20.1, referred to Chirostenotes pergracilis Gilmore, 1924 (after Currie & Russell, 1988); B, AMNH FR 3041, holotype of Microvenator celer Ostrom, 1970 (after Makovicky & Sues, 1998); C, GI 100/119, holotype of Nomingia gobiensis Barsbold et al., 2000; D, ROM 43250, holotype of Epichirostenotes curriei Sullivan et al., 2011 (after Sues, 2008); SMP VP-1458, holotype of Ojoraptorsaurus boerei Sullivan et al., 2011. Scale bar equals 10cm.

Kids and Fluffy Dinosaurs

Microvenator, as shown Friday, appeared to have been a fluffy dinosaur. The downy coat that appeared on Friday was only slightly different from the two feathered forms shown yesterday. I think it would make a good pet, the fluffy version, or at least a good pillow. Anyhow, there are not too many kid friendly links, regardless of the appearance of fluffiness and almost docility that are sometimes depicted in Microvenator. We do not have awful links, though I cannot say that we have fabulous links; we all now the quality that comes with Enchanted Learning dinosaur pictures. This dinosaur is more retro than it is awful though, I have to say. Retro is not bad, it is just... retro. As far as videos for kids go, we have nothing today. We do have ample coloring abilities though, using yesterday's images  actually. I would suggest using Rachel Clark's image though, as it has very good solid lines that lend themselves to coloring images very well.

A Choice of Skulls

Microvenator, as seen above, is based off of loosely related and, though it looks as though it is articulated, disarticulated fragments of bone. The skull has only been found in small chunks and the holotype used by Ostrom to describe the animal was only about half of a mandible, if that much. Therefore, any representation shown is an educated guess based on the description of Microvenator and subsequent taxonomic relationship derived thereof by Ostrom in his 1970 publication. Ostrom, of course, was not a slacker and his description is well thought out, thorough (for the time at which it was produced and published), and as exhaustive a description as it could be based on the fragmentary evidence available. Two basic models of the skull have been generated based on the description of Ostrom and the fragmentary evidence of the skull that is available including any newer materials that have been weathered out of the soil and collected since 1933 and 1970, the original discovery and description respectively.

©Rachel K. Clark: Depicting a robust carnivore.

One mode of depiction of that skull, best exemplified by this slightly older illustration, is that of a longer muzzled theropod. Based on the bit of mandible that was discovered in the original fossil grouping, the muzzle would extend a little but further forward than in other Oviraptorids, and this would not necessarily be incorrect. Remember that Microvenator is considered to be a rather primitive, or basal, Oviraptorid and may have thus retained a longer muzzle, even though it too may have been mostly beak like and toothless such as that found in later cousins and descendants of the species, as it was just recently divergently evolving from the other Maniraptors it is cousins with. Somewhere that face had to have changed over from the Maniraptor muzzle of a long toothy death machine to the more bird-like beak of the Oviraptorids and Microvenator, being as primitive as it is considered to be, sounds, and looks, like a fantastic place for that change to occur.

©Oyvind M. Padron: Depicting a more graceful omnivore.

The more recent version, however, shows Microvenator having already developed the bird-like beak of the other Oviraptorids. While not outstanding or ostentatiously strange, this sort of skull would assume that A) the fragmented mandible  was indicative of a bird-like jaw structure and B) that there is an even more primitive Oviraptorid or Maniraptoid form that is an intermediary between the Maniraptorid muzzle of sharp killing teeth and the toothless Oviraptorid bird beak. As with anything in paleontology, that is quite the possibility, but given the justification within the description and subsequent debates over the placement of Microvenator within the basal Oviraptorid slot it is difficult to think that Microvenator is not that intermediary between bird beak and toothed muzzle. However, the, so far, complete lack of sharp killing teeth associated with Microvenator does support the bird beak idea, which would allow for the diet of Microvenator being close to that of Chirostenotes and other Oviraptorids, namely consisting of small mammals, lizards, and vegetarian delights additionally, and make the idea of Microvenator as basal, but not the intermediary between true Maniraptorid and true Oviraptorid dinosaurs, hold a lot of water, figuratively of course, when depicted with the bird-like beak rather than the elongated muzzle.

More Bird Faced Killers

©Michael B.H.

Caenagnathids popped up on the North American Cretaceous land in, if it is accurate that Microvenator celer (small hunter) represents the primitive sister taxon of all other Oviraptorids, the Cloverly Formation (approximately 107MYA). The original specimen, the type (AMNH3041) consists of minimal material including a partial skull, numerous vertebrae, left hand, arm, foot and leg, a couple ribs, and its pelvis. The original collection, unearthed by Barnum Brown in 1933 (not published, though Mackovicky and Sues did publish his illustrations for the first time in 1998)  included several large carnivorous teeth that have been since attributed to Deinonychus. In 1970 John Ostrom, who had worked the previous year on publishing his description of Deinonychus, named and described Microvenator from the type specimen. Microvenator is, therefore, another example, like its later cousins Chirostenotes, an animal which was described using minimal material. It looks rather fluffy though, hardly like a killer, however, it was estimated at approximately 10 feet long as an adult; the type specimen is thought to be a 4 foot long juvenile.

Famous, Not Popular

Diabloceratops is a famous dinosaur for sure. In the past two years since the publication of the book which hosted the initial description paper Diabloceratops has gained a lot of notoriety. Granted this has not translated into a dearth of toys, children's books, games or plush toys, but Diabloceratops is well known. Diabloceratops was, and is, certainly well known enough in the paleontology community alone to be of great importance; typically we think of popular culture as museum displays and trinkets, but with a dinosaur like this "popular culture" for the moment at least is the paleo-community. It is quite popular in that community as a subject of study in terms of Ceratopsid evolution. No major papers have been published, to my knowledge, about the placement of Diabloceratops within the Centrosaurine or Ceratopsid family. I think I may have to look into it though, even though this week is just about over for Diabloceratops.

Horns and Family Evolution

Originally posted by Dave Hone. Courtesy James Kirkland

This image is loaded with information about half of the Marginocephalian clade. The Protoceratopsidae are clearly separated out until it branches over to Zuniceratops and moves into the true Ceratopsidae; I think the paleontology community as a whole would have very little argument in agreeing with the majority of that much of the image. Chasmosaurines are not stressed here and are thus relegated to an outlier branch with little to no description while Zuniceratops' other descendants are laid out in a manner which trends in two ways from oldest to youngest as well as from the general trend of number of horns; decreasing as the line progressed over time. It is interesting to note that the general trend is described as "losing horns" but it seems as though not all of the animals represented are truly losing horns. In fact, Styracosaurus, right in the middle, seems to have far more horns, on the frill, than any other Centrosaurine; though it does in fact only possess a nasal horn on the remainder of the skull. Diabloceratops had four horns that are clearly seen, a nasal horn is sometimes depicted on the dinosaur, while the furthest cousin down the line, Pachyrhinosaurus, is thought by many to have no horns at all; this is sometimes countered by the idea that the bony boss on the nasal bone is actually the base of a keratin based horn like in rhinoceroses which has yet to be found preserved in the fossil record. Looking at the skulls it almost feels like Centrosaurus and Einiosaurus should be more closely related also, given the shapes of their horns. Switching the placement of Styracosaurus and Centrosaurus would also, visually, follow the trend of lose of horns more accurately it appears.

Kirkland mentions that the antorbital fenestrations in Ceratopsidae overall appear, disappear, and reappear in later species on a fairly baffling basis. Diabloceratops had such a fenestration "at the contact of the nasal, premaxilla, and maxilla forward of the antorbital fenestra that we call the accessory antorbital fenestra (AAF)." Some of the Protoceratopsidae possess this opening, such as Magnirostris, as did some of the Chasmosaurine dinosaurs like Chasmosaurus itself. The reason that the opening is apparent in some Ceratopsids and not others has not, to my knowledge, been explained as yet, but it seems to be quite an interesting phenomena to study alongside the reduction in horns within the Centrosaurine dinosaurs.

Writing Of The Devil

Kirkland and DeBlieux's paper did not actually show up as a paper. Sure you can download it now as a pdf, thus making it a paper, this was linked in the Smithsonian blog Dinosaur Tracking by Brian Switek, so it should be free to use, plus it is hosted on Academia.edu, but the paper was originally published as a section of a then new book edited by Ryan, Chinnery-Allgeier, and Eberth titled New Perspectives on Horned Dinosaurs: The Royal Tyrrell Museum Ceratopsian Symposium (Life of the Past) and available on Amazon or in chunks of readable text on Google. To ask James Kirkland what he thought about the paper and discovery personally, we only have to look in the archives of another blog, Archosaur Musings written mainly by Dave Hone, where Kirkland authored a guest post. This, as opposed to many other recently named dinosaurs, is that availability of information one expects to see in the modern age, though we have to actually be aware of the fact this is actually an extremely rare exception to the rule even in this day of free flowing information. Publishers and authors and media sources in general still charge for this sort of information, which they have to to survive, and is thus understandable, but lamentable as well. While reading that paper, enjoy this wonderful artwork depicting two Diabloceratops by Paulo Marcio from Brazil (note the nasal horn the artist has added into his interpretation):

©Paulo Marcio

Not Quite A Movie Star

Diabloceratops, as a new dinosaur, is under the radar in terms of appearances on film. We have visited this issue before in discussing how newer dinosaurs are less likely to appear in documentaries, movies, or television shows for a number of years and then, even after a century or more, how some still do not get chosen to be represented in any way shape or form of motion entertainment. In some instances it is very odd that certain dinosaurs are not shown in movies etc. but with a dinosaur like Diabloceratops, only recently described and revealed to the public, that sort of thing is both very understandable and makes a lot of sense. There is a fairly well done tribute video, though I put it on mute after about ten seconds (we have discussed my dislike of musical choices for tribute videos many times over I think by this point), but it highlights some great illustrations and shows many interpretations of Diabloceratops by some very good artists, and we really cannot complain about that.

New Dinosaurs and Children

New dinosaurs always seem to be lacking in the "child friendly" areas of the internet, which really just means that we, as a paleontologically (I think I just made up a word) minded community need to put in the effort to build a better network for the children of the world to learn about all dinosaurs. I think I dive into this topic at least once a month. Had I the resources and know-how I would do it. Perhaps I will use some free time to learn how to make a killer website and put it together...

However, for the nonce, to sound sophisticated this morning, we shall have to make due with what we have to teach children about Diabloceratops. One would imagine that such an ornate and crazy looking dinosaur would have already accumulated some websites devoted to it or some of our favorite children's websites would have dredged out space for such a wondrous creature. I know that the newly, in the last year, opened Natural History Museum in Utah there is a Diabloceratops skull mounted on the wall (look in the lower center of the picture of the wall mounted ceratopsians) and, at the time that this entry was written about the museum, there was one in what was called the Paleolab that could be shown to eager youngsters. If you live in Salt Lake, or near enough to take a day trip some time, it looks as though it would be a wonderful museum to take a family to. I wish it had been there, in this capacity at least, the last time I was in Salt Lake, but in 2003 it was probably a vague thought in someone's mind. Toys and cartoons do not exist for Diabloceratops, neither do dedicated coloring pages (though you can always ask Andrey Atuchin nicely if you can use his line art to color, he's a nice guy, or Elijah Shandseight, though I do not know him at all), which is both unfortunate and sad.

Facing Diablo

©Taylor Made Fossils, Replica Cast

Diabloceratops, as mentioned yesterday, has a wicked looking set of horns on its face. Those horns were discovered in the original skull, which I think is the only skull discovered so far, and were almost entirely intact, which is an unusual feat in the arena of paleontology. The skull was found compressed, not crushed, with one side of the skull missing many key elements; the uncompressed side of the skull represented all of these elements well enough that a reconstruction was possible to create a full scale replica of the skull as it would have appeared in life, that is, non-compressed and in the correct living dimensions. The brow horns of Diabloceratops are unique amongst the majority of the centrosaurines not only because they exist, the vast majority of centrosaurine dinosaurs do not have actual horns above the brow ridges, but also because of the sheer size of those horns. Albertaceratops, another centrosaur, had brow horns as well (Greg Paul  2011 places Diabloceratops within the genus Albertosaurus), but the horns of Albertaceratops are slightly shorter than those of Diabloceratops. The frill horns of Diabloceratops are not abnormal, though, for the centrosaur family. Styracosaurus, for example, has a frill full of horns and is a contemporary of Diabloceratops, though is assumed to be slightly larger.

©Walter Myers at Arcadia Street

Walter Myers has been kind enough to show us the relative size of Diabloceratops compared to a living animal; the rhinoceros. Styracosaurus is a centrosaur that is a great deal larger, however, the frill of Diabloceratops almost makes the animal look just as big as its bigger cousin. This week, however, we are far more interested in Diabloceratops, so let us back away from Styracosaurus and Albertaceratops both and get back to Diabloceratops. The average white rhinoceros, that pictured, tops out at about 15 feet (4.6m) long and 6.6 feet (2m) tall weighing it at around 7,000lbs (3,500kg). As we can see with Mr. Myers illustration. To add in even more perspective, the horn of a white rhinoceros, perhaps this rhinoceros as well, averages approximately 35 inches (90cm) and can top out at 59 inches (150cm). This rhinoceros, assuming its average, shows by proxy that the horns of Diabloceratops' brow horns are approximately the same size as the nasal horn of the white rhinoceros and the frill horns are easily nearly double that size. Everyone can also easily observe, from both the illustration and the photographs of the replica skull, that there is no nasal horn present, that we know of, of course, present on the skull of Diabloceratops. Most centrosaurs present with nasal horns, with the exception of Diabloceratops (obviously), Alberaceratops, and Pachyrhinosaurus.

Wicked Curves

©Nobu Tamura

Discovered by Donald DeBlieux in 2002 (which rhymes just a little), Diabloceratops eatoni was named and described in a paper published in 2010 by DeBlieux and James Kirkland; Kirkland had the lead authorship on the paper. The specific name is in honor of Jeffrey Eaton, a paleontologist, and the genus name was taken from the "devil horns" of the skull. As a Centrosaurine Ceratopsian, Diabloceratops is a slightly smaller dinosaur than animals like the later Triceratops, a Chasmosaurine.What DeBlieux uncovered in the Utah "badlands" of Grand Staircase National Monument was a partial skull with the wickedly curving horns and a part of the lower jaw; the typical amount of skeleton that is usually associated with Ceratopsian digs (larger amounts of partial skeletons have been found, do not take that to mean all we ever find of Ceratopsians is their head). Kirkland noted that Diabloceratops is an extremely early Ceratopsid with many Protoceratopsid anatomical markers in the skull; perhaps even more Protoceratopsid markers than true Ceratopsian markers including fenestrations which would later close or disappear in geologically younger genera and species.

Popular Enough For Amateurs

Shapeways model by Adam Doyle

I do not know the whole story with this model, but I think I understand it to have been digitally sculpted and then 3D printed by an amateur dinosaur toy enthusiast; the fact that dinosaur toy enthusiasts can now sculpt and print their own scaled models of dinosaurs says a lot for how expensive quality models are and for how wonderful technology has become. Models like the one to the left are probably still somewhat expensive, in terms of toy models of dinosaurs, but these 3D printings are usually as cheap as the material that is chosen to be sculpted, and could thus be, overall, a lot cheaper for a single toy than a single model at Toy'R'Us where the model is marked up three to four times by the time it gets to the shelf! Regardless, Chirostenotes being popular enough for amateur toy sculptors and enthusiasts to go to the length of creating, ordering, and printing off 3D models is notable. The other major outlets in which we find Chirostenotes have been briefly examined over the week, such as in Dinosaur Train episodes, and has also appeared in some books, though I did mention that those books are typically the much higher reading level books on Sunday when I discussed children's books and how I could not find many, if any, for this animal. Tribute videos exist, as they do for most animals, so that is nothing at all new to our popularity days.