Styracosaurus Dinosaur Facts

During the Late Cretaceous period, the plains and woodlands of North America were populated by a variety of frilled and horned dinosaurs. Among these ceratopsians, one dinosaur in particular distinguishes itself by the impressive ornamentation of its skull. Styracosaurus is a centrosaurin which possessed a very long frill studded with 4 to 6 horns on top of it. Its snout is decorated with a huge horn, nearly 2 feet long, and small spikes are protruding on each side of its cheeks. This mastodon was rather moderate in size for a ceratopsian and weighed about 3 tons in adulthood. In comparison, the average weight of a full-grown Triceratops is estimated at 7 tons, more than twice that of Styracosaurus.

As with other frilled dinosaurs, Styracosaurus's corpulence was roughly similar to that of a rhinoceros: a stuffed trunk and thick, stumpy legs. The feet of Styracosaurus were also gigantic.

Discoveries and species

In 1913, Canadian paleontologist Lawrence Lambe unearths the Styracosaurus holotype fossil from a geological formation in the Canadian province of Alberta. He calls it Styracosaurus albertensis.

Two years later, the famous paleontologist Barnum Brown, then on an expedition for the American Museum of Natural History, discovered the second specimen of Styracosaurus in what is now Dinosaur Provincial Park, also in Alberta. A very large part of the postcranial skeleton is intact but only a few small pieces of the skull are found. In a paper published in 1937, more than 20 years after its discovery, Brown claims that the fossil is sufficiently different from the first to deserve to be a new species, Styracosaurus parksi.

At that time, it was the third documented species of Styracosaurus since in 1930 Charles Gilmore found a third skeleton of this dinosaur and named it Styracosaurus ovatus. All these specimens had prominent spikes jutting out of the parietal bones of their frills.

In 2007, a team of three paleontologists undertook the arduous task of revising fossil material and reclassifying Styracosaurus specimens. After long analysis and comparisons between the collars of the different remains and the ornamentation of these they came to the conclusion that there is in fact only one valid species, Styracosaurus albertensis.

Diet

Ceratopsians in general, which includes Styracosaurus, had batteries of renewable teeth that were very well suited for intensive grinding of rough plant material. These dinosaurs fed mainly on palms, ferns and cycads. It is also possible that Styracosaurus swallowed small rocks called gastroliths in order to promote digestion in its massive gut.

Function of the collar

As is generally the case with the ornamentations of almost all dinosaurs, the collar of Styracosaurus almost certainly played a large role in the courtship display.

In addition, most Cretaceous ceratopsians were group animals, as evidenced by fossil beds containing hundreds of individuals. The elaborate decoration of the Styracosaurus is also thought to play a role of recognition and signaling among members of the same herd. The frill was probably gorged with blood in the presence of a tyrannosaurus which warned others or perhaps it was simply used to intimidate the predators of the time.

The last possible function of the Styracosaurus frill is that it acted as a thermal regulator, absorbing light rays during the day and dissipating excess heat at night.