History of the Ceratopsians

History of the Ceratopsians

For the first post here, I thought we'd look at one of the most well-known and interesting Dinosaur groups, the Ceratopsians (horned faces). The Ceratopsians were a herbivorous family of dinosaurs that came into being at the end of the Jurassic/beginning of the Cretaceous period, and belong to the Ornithischia (bird-hipped) order of dinosaurs, as opposed to Saurischia (lizard-hipped) order. "But they are lizards, not birds!" I hear you cry.
This may be so, but this is an easy way of categorizing dinosaurs, as they have 2 distinct hip types..and the ceratopsians fall into the former category. *We'll look into the classification process at a later date*
So, what is a Ceratopsian? Well, for most people the best example of this order is Triceratops, or "Three Horned Face". This is the species with the 3 massive horns and a frill around it's neck, made famous in Jurassic Park as the dinosaur that got sick, and had everyone sifting through its poo.. :D

Triceratops is the classic shape for it's order. It has a "beak" rather than a traditional lizard mouth, walks on all fours and has horns and a frill around it's neck. The horns and frill were most likely used for defense against predators. the frill itself would enable the 'Ceratops to protect it's neck from being bitten by a large T-Rex, and the horns, much like on Wildebeest today, make for impressive weapons and would put off all but the bravest of predators.
Additionally, many palaeontologists believe these defensive weapons were also used in mating rituals, with the frill becoming brightly coloured during mating season, and that the males would engage their horns in deadly duels, much like rutting stags of today.

Some species of ceratopsian looked very similar to the Triceratops, for example Styracosaurus (spiked lizard) was very similar, except it had only one facial horn near it's beak, but had a frill covered in deadly spikes to compensate for the loss of the 2 remaining facial horns.
Conversely, Protoceratops (first horned face) had the frill and beak, but as it was an ancestor of the Triceratops, had not developed the horns, and thus looks much friendlier overall ;)
But if we look even further back through the ancestry of these species, we find that the earliest members of the Ceratopsian family were much smaller and lighter than the monstrously huge Triceratops. Psittacosaurus (parrot lizard) evolved in the early Cretaceous, was mostly bipedal, and had no frill at all, with just the distinguishing beak to mark it as an early example of a Ceratopsian.
(In fact, Psittacosaurus is much more akin to the more nimble Hipsilophodon than any of its tdescendants..)
And yet, looking at these species in order, the evolution from nimble biped to tank-like Triceratops is clear to see. And for that reason, the Ceratopsians remain one of my favourite dinosaur families.