Preparing for the Beasts of the Mesozoic Zuniceratops

A neoceratopsian is drawing nearer.  Everything Dinosaur will soon be receiving stock of the new Beasts of the Mesozoic ceratopsians, including the wonderful Zuniceratops figure.  This colourful creation depicts Zuniceratops christopheri, the oldest North American ceratopsian possessing prominent, well-developed brow horns, a foretaste of what was to become with the evolution of the centrosaurine and chasmosaurine lineages of horned dinosaurs.

The Beasts of the Mesozoic Zuniceratops Model

Preparing Fact Sheets on Horned Dinosaurs Including Zuniceratops

Everything Dinosaur likes to supply a free fact sheet with sales of dinosaur models.  Over the years, the company has researched and written hundreds of fact sheets.   As a result, most of the Beasts of the Mesozoic Ceratopsidae are already covered, but Zuniceratops is one of the exceptions.  Staff are currently completing their fact sheet all about this neoceratopsian from the Middle Turonian Moreno Hill Formation of west-central New Mexico.  A scale drawing of this relatively small member of the horned dinosaurs has already been commissioned.

A Scale Drawing of the Neoceratopsian Zuniceratops (Z. christopheri)

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Stocks of the new for 2020 Beasts of the Mesozoic ceratopsians are due to arrive at Everything Dinosaur’s UK warehouse in a few weeks.  In addition, new supplies of the popular Beasts of the Mesozoic Raptors will be arriving too.

To view the range of Beasts of the Mesozoic models available from Everything Dinosaur: Beasts of the Mesozoic Articulated Prehistoric Animal Models.

At Home in the Landscape Zuniceratops christopheri

Zuniceratops christopheri

Zuniceratops was formally named in 1998 (Douglas Wolfe and James Kirkland), in a preliminary description.  The publishing of the scientific paper coincided with the discovery of a substantial Zuniceratops bonebed that provided hundreds more fossil bones representing at least seven individuals (based on the number of lower jaws found).

The bones are disarticulated and represent a group of different sized animals, so calculating the maximum size for Zuniceratops is problematic, but most palaeontologists estimate that this horned dinosaur that lived around 90 million years ago (Turonian stage of the Late Cretaceous), measured between 2.2 and 3.3 metres in length.  As such, it was very much smaller than its descendants, the centrosaurine and chasmosaurine dinosaurs that were so diverse and numerous during the Campanian and Maastrichtian faunal stages of the Late Cretaceous.

The co-association of individuals of various sizes in the bonebed suggests that this dinosaur lived in herds, with adults and younger animals demonstrating communal behaviour.

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