HOME | DD
NTamura — Koreaceratops
by-nc-nd
Published: 2010-11-28 03:26:37 +0000 UTC; Views: 4131; Favourites: 69; Downloads: 0
Redirect to original
Description
Koreaceratops hwaseongensis, from the early Cretaceous of South Korea. Its tall neural spines on its caudal vertebrae lead scientists to believe in an amphibious lifestyle for this little ceratopsian (I am skeptical), using its tail as a paddle for swimming.Related content
Comments: 25
Very interesting and unusual ceratopsian and I also doubt that it was a swimming dinosaur. Some primitive ceratopsians such as Protoceratops also had spines on the caudal vertebrae that were quite tall, giving it a deep tail and that dinosaur wasn't a swimmer.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I can see why you are skeptical . There are no fins on bottom of the tail, so it can't be made for swimming.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Some aquatic animals only had a top fin (early Ichthyosaurs).
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
You'er right. That's true.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
it looks like it would have difficulty taking breaths with those nostrils.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
If it's an underwater swimming dino, duh, looks dumb.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I find it unlikely it was used for swimming, Dinosaurs tails were too stiff to be used for swimming except in the most primitive theropods.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Hippokoreaceratopsosamus! It looks cool hypothetically amphibious, the bubbles are a cute touch.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
very nice impression i like it
yeah im a bit skeptical about the swimming thing it could be a display mechanism so who knows
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I say, if the ecology suggests so, why not? Leptoceratops lived in swampy country too...
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I know this ceratopsian dude it's from my country.... although I am also very, very skeptical of the swimming part... I think there was also another hilariously inaccurate reconstruction of swimming basal ceratopisans...
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I haven't seen any other reconstruction of a swimming ceratopsian yet...
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Yeah, I'm pretty skeptical too. I read Ford and Martin (2010) "A semi-aquatic life habitat for Psittacosaurus" and it seems that they did a lot of selective interpretation of traits which are also found in fully-terrestrial animals, and the suggestion that this guy was semi-aquatic might be considered as a fall-out from that. It feels a bit like the "Aquatic Ape Hypothesis" all over again...
You might have already read this, but there was an interesting debate/discussion on that very issue on the When Pigs Fly blog here: [link]
They really need further evidence from isotope studies similar to this:
Liu, A.G., Seiffert, E.R., Simons, E.L. (2008) Stable isotope evidence for an amphibious phase in early proboscidean evolution. PNAS 105(15): 5786-5791.
or this:
Amiot R., et al. (2010) Oxygen isotope evidence for semi-aquatic habits among spinosaurid theropods. Geology 38(2): 139-142
To be convincing... which I noticed has already been suggested by Brian Switek: [link]
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Yes, I totally agree with you...
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Well I find it not so shocking, consider this group were more in vain to artiodactyls (in terms of diverse ecology) as whole than to rhinos.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I think the evidences presented for an amphibious lifestyle are a bit ...light.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I'm not saying this was some water cherovitan ceratopsian, I'm just saying that it's possible that it could occur and that the lifestyles were more akin to artiodactlys: small ceratopsians were like pigs, small deer and/or small antelope. And most ceratopsids were probably more like the larger species of antelope or deer in terms of ecology and lifestyle than what people assume these dinosaurs as dino-rhinos.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1