Gracile Slender Horned-Face

Leptoceratops gracilis

    The great ceratopsians like Triceratops and Centrosaurus evolved from smaller, more slender ornithischians like Protoceratops. However, evolution consists mostly of diversification, not ordered progression, and even after the advent of the larger ceratopsians, the smaller ones still thrive.  Leptoceratops gracilis, although phisically very primitive, lives in Late Creataceous Alberta side by side with its larger cousins.  The tiny ceratopsian's small size gives it an atvantage in dense forest and allows it to eat plants to which the other herbivores in this place cannot gain access.

Thanks to Jordan Mallon for suggesting I paint Leptoceratops gracilis.
Other sites containing pertinent information:

• T. Mike Keesey's Leptoceratopspage
• DinoData'sLeptoceratops page
• Brian Franczak's Leptoceratops
• The Cerotopsia Website's Leptoceratops page
• DinoData's Leptoceratops page
• The Dinosaur Park's  Leptoceratops page
• John Conway's Leptoceratops drawing
• The Complete Dinosaur edited by James O. Farlow and M.K. Brett-Surman, published in 1997 by Indiana University Press.
• The Scientific American Book of Dinosaurs edited by Gregory S. Paul, published by St. Martin's Press (New York) in 2000.

© Daniel Bensen 2001
This image modified by Adobe Photoshop
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