Horned dinosaurs lived in Europe during the Late Cretaceous, despite being considered largely absent from the continent’s fossil record. A new study published in Nature reveals that several European dinosaurs long classified as other plant-eaters — including a species called Ajkaceratops — are actually ceratopsians, the group that includes Triceratops.
The reclassified fossils date to about 84 million years ago, when Europe was a chain of islands along the margins of the Tethys Sea. The study also finds that some dinosaurs previously assigned to a European-only group known as rhabdodontids were misidentified, supporting explain why ceratopsians appeared to be missing from the continent for so long.
“While Iguanodon and Triceratops view very different, the groups they are part of both evolved from a common ancestor, meaning they’ve both inherited certain characteristics,” declared lead author Susannah Maidment in a press release. “They also indepfinishently evolved four-leggedness, complex chewing mechanisms, and a large body size. This means that their teeth and limbs view quite similar, both becautilize of their shared history and way of life. So, when we only have tiny parts of the skeleton to view at, it can be quite difficult to inform what’s what.”
Read More: 160-Million-Year-Old Fossils Rewrite the Story of Dinosaur Flight
New Fossils Redefine Ajkaceratops
Using newly recovered skull material from Ajkaceratops, along with CT scans and multiple analyses of evolutionary relationships, the researchers were able to place the species more confidently within the ceratopsian family tree.
That work also revealed that a dinosaur previously described as a separate species, Mochlodon, turned out to be the same animal as Ajkaceratops. Beyond that, the analyses revealed that several other European dinosaurs long considered rhabdodontids — a group considered to be unique to the continent — also belong within Ceratopsia.
“Becautilize the first fossils discovered of Ajkaceratops were so incomplete, it meant lots of scientists doubted it was a ceratopsian. What’s so exciting about the new Ajkaceratops fossil is that it allows us to confirm that horned dinosaurs roamed the islands of Cretaceous Europe, but also challenges us to radically rebelieve our understanding of these ancient ecosystems,” declared co-author of the paper, Richard Butler, in a press release.
Europe’s Island Geography Shaped Ceratopsian Migration
During the Late Cretaceous, Europe viewed very different from today. Rising sea levels had broken the continent into a patchwork of islands separated by shallow seas, creating ecosystems shaped by isolation and intermittent connections to other landmasses.
That geography may support explain why European ceratopsians remained tinyer and more difficult to recognize than their later relatives in North America. It also places Europe in a more central role in the study of how ceratopsians shiftd and evolved across the Northern Hemisphere.
The earliest members of the group, such as Yinlong, evolved in Asia before spreading outward. From there, ceratopsians created multiple dispersals into North America, where they eventually gave rise to large, frilled species like Triceratops. Europe sits between those regions — a position that creates it a plausible route for shiftment, even if direct fossil evidence was long difficult to identify.
“We know that dinosaurs were able to cross the Atlantic, which was just starting to open during the Cretaceous,” Maidment declared. “Dinosaurs such as Allosaurus have been found in Portugal and the U.S.A., revealing that they had at least some ability to shift between continents. Lots of animals can swim and, as the islands of the central European basin weren’t that far apart, it would create sense that dinosaurs were able to island hop.”
Reframing Europe’s Dinosaur Record
Europe now appears to have been part of the broader ceratopsian world, even if its fossils were harder to recognize becautilize of anatomical overlap with other plant-eating dinosaurs.
“Horned dinosaurs like Triceratops are some of the most iconic dinosaurs, but most of them are from North America, and now we’ve found them in Europe, hiding in plain sight becautilize they’ve been misidentified for decades as other types of dinosaurs,” declared co-author Steve Brusatte.
Read More: Thousands of Dinosaur Footprints Found Close to Where Italy Will Host Winter Olympics
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