Brachyceratops
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Brachyceratops Temporal range: Late Cretaceous, 74.5 Ma |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Clade: | Dinosauria |
| Order: | †Ornithischia |
| Family: | †Ceratopsidae |
| Subfamily: | †Centrosaurinae |
| Genus: |
†Brachyceratops Gilmore, 1914 |
| Species: | †B. montanensis |
| Binomial name | |
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Brachyceratops montanensis Gilmore, 1914 |
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Brachyceratops ('short horned face') is a dubious genus of ceratopsian dinosaur known only from partial juvenile specimens dating to the late Cretaceous Period of Montana, United States.
Brachyceratops has historically been known from juvenile remains, with one specimen having since been re-classified as Rubeosaurus ovatus.
Brachyceratops montanensis, the type species, was first discovered in the Two Medicine Formation (Campanian, about 74 million years old) on a Blackfoot Indian Reservation in Teton County in north-central Montana. The original find was made in August 1913 by C. W. Gilmore and his assistant J. Floyd Strayer and was named and shortly described by Gilmore one year later. The generic name is derived from Greek: βραχύς, brachys, "short", Greek: κέρας, keras, "horn" and Greek: ὤψ, ops, "face", in reference to the short snout. The specific name refers to the provenance from Montana.
All that was found were incomplete and jumbled remains of five juvenile individuals of about 1.5 m (5 feet) in length. It has been speculated that these juveniles may have been nest mates that stayed together after hatching. The holotype specimen is USNM 7951, a partial skull. The paratypes are USNM 7952, a snout, USNM 7953, a partial skeleton with skull and USNM 7957, a foot. The material is disarticulated but the preservation is excellent. In 1917 Gilmore published a monograph on Brachyceratops in which a reconstruction of the skeleton as a whole was given.
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