Utahceratops gettyi

Utahceratops gettyi is a chasmosaurine ceratopsian dinosaur from the Late Campanian of the Late Cretaceous period , which lived approximately 76 million years ago in what is now the state of Utah, USA . Its name translates as " Utah horned face ," in honor of the location of its discovery and the paleontologist Mike Getty , who found the first remains.

Taxonomically it belongs to Ornithischia , Ceratopsia and Ceratopsidae within the subgroup Chasmosaurinae , characterized by prominent facial horns and a bony frill extending behind the skull.

Anatomically, Utahceratops was a large, robust, quadrupedal herbivore with a massive body. The available fossil remains come from several specimens—including two partial skulls that, combined, allow for the reconstruction of approximately 96% of the skull and roughly 70% of the postcranial skeleton —providing a solid basis for characterizing its morphology.

The most distinctive feature of Utahceratops is its cranial ornamentation : it possessed three horns, with a straight, prominent nasal horn located just behind the nostrils and two short, robust supraorbital horns directed laterally rather than upwards as in Triceratops . These horns, along with an elongated frill and two large fenestrae (holes) in the frill to reduce the weight of the skull, suggest a cranial design adapted for both intraspecific combat and the display of social signals.

Size estimates for this species are 6–7 meters in total body length , with a height of around 2 meters at the shoulder and an exceptionally large skull approximately 2.3 meters long . The estimated weight is on the order of ~2 metric tons , making it comparable in size to large extinct rhinoceroses or young elephants.

From a functional point of view, Utahceratops had a robust horny beak and a highly specialized dental battery , with hundreds of teeth arranged in columns capable of cutting and crushing tough vegetation , indicating adaptations to process a wide variety of terrestrial plants available in its environment.

Habitat and paleoecology: This ceratopsian was found in the Kaiparowits Formation of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument , an environment that during the Campanian was a subtropical coastal floodplain with warm, humid climates, rivers, lakes, and diverse vegetation. This region was part of Laramidia , a landmass isolated by the Western Interior Seaway that divided North America, creating conditions of biogeographic endemism that fostered distinct dinosaur fauna in the north and south of this territory.

The coexistence of Utahceratops with other ceratopsians such as Kosmoceratops in southern Laramidia, while different forms inhabited the north (as in Alberta, Canada), supports the idea of distinct faunal provinces in the Late Cretaceous of North America, possibly resulting from ecological or climatic barriers.

Approximate measurements of the Utahceratops:

• 1:60 Scale Complete
• Length 101 mm
• Height 55 mm
• width 27 mm
• Snout-tail length 109 mm

• 1:35 Scale Complete
• Length 173 mm
• Height 94 mm
• Width 46 mm
• Snout-tail length 186 mm

• Complete 1:20 Scale
• Length 303 mm
• Height 164 mm
• Width 81 mm
• Snout-tail length 325 mm