The world's oldest known ceratopsian dinosaur was found in Morocco, including a fossilized femur. The discovery, published in Royal Society Open Science, confirms that ceratopsians existed as early as the Middle Jurassic period, approximately 168 million years ago.
The discovery was made by scientists from the Natural History Museum in London, the University of Birmingham, and the University of Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah. Dr. Susannah Maidment, a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London and the lead author of the study, described the excitement of the research team when they found a Middle Jurassic upper limb bone during excavations in the Central Atlas Mountains of Morocco.
The recently discovered femur shows features that definitively identify it as belonging to a cerapodan, including a groove on the back of the head, a distinctive trait observed exclusively in ceratopsians. This peculiar feature is not found in older ornithischians. "The anatomy of the leg of this specimen provides valuable information about ceratopsians," Dr. Maidment explained.
Before this finding, the only confirmed skeletal evidence of cerapodans from the Middle Jurassic was a single femur found in the UK. This new specimen surpasses the previous record by 2 million years, marking it as the oldest body fossil of a ceratopsian ever discovered. While fossilized footprints indicated that cerapodans roamed during the Middle Jurassic, skeletal remains had been scarce.
The discovery fills a gap in the fossil record that has limited paleontologists' ability to study the origins and early evolution of cerapodan dinosaurs. Information regarding ceratopsian movements and diversification during the Middle Jurassic had remained elusive, mainly due to the scarcity of Middle Jurassic rocks globally. Dr. Maidment emphasized that this discovery confirms the diversification of ceratopsian dinosaurs as early as the Middle Jurassic.
The El Mers III Formation, near where the recent find was made, has already produced the oldest ankylosaur ever found, as well as one of the oldest stegosaurs. This suggests that Middle Jurassic rocks in Morocco could prove to be fertile ground for further discoveries. Scientists believe that there may be other unknown remains in this region that can shed light on the early evolution of dinosaurs.
Ceratopsians are a group of herbivorous dinosaurs characterized by a bipedal posture. Known for their small size and herbivorous diet, they have left fossil traces attesting to their presence during the Cretaceous period worldwide. It was previously believed that they spread widely during this time. This new finding proves that ceratopsians began to evolve and adapt to different conditions long before the Cretaceous period.
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