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Diabloceratops eatoni

By Jack Wood

Etymology: Devil Horned Face

First Described By: Kirkland et al., 2010

Classification: Dinosauromorpha, Dinosauriformes, Dracohors, Dinosauria, Ornithischia, Genasauria, Neornithischia, Cerapoda, Marginocephalia, Ceratopsia, Neoceratopsia, Coronosauria, Ceratopsoidea, Ceratopsidae, Centrosaurinae?

Status: Extinct

Time and Place: Between 81 and 79 million years ago, in the Campanian of the Late Cretaceous

Diabloceratops is known from the lower and middle members of the Wahweap Formation of Utah

Physical Description: Diabloceratops is one of the most completely visually distinctive Ceratopsids - like all members of this very samey group, its body was the same as the rest of them, but its head was distinctive enough to give it a famous name. Like other Ceratopsids, Diabloceratops had four squat legs, a thick torso, and a short tail. It had a long head, with a large crest and a giant beak in the front of its snout, as well as teeth well built for chewing. The interesting thing about this Ceratopsid is that, while it has small brow horns like most early members of this group, it also had two very noticeable horns coming out of its frills - curving away from each other, the left one curving out to the left and the right one curving out to the right. This gave Diabloceratops the very distinctive look of… well, the Christian depiction of Satan. Hence its name, Devil Horned Face! It had a lightly built skull, with a hole seen in earlier Ceratopsians than the later Ceratopsids, and its head was shorter and deeper than later members. The frill of Diabloceratops was kind of weird too - very tall and narrow, rather than wider as in later Ceratopsians. Diabloceratops was primarily scaly all over, though it is possible (especially given how early derived it was) that it had quills or feathery fluff on its tail like earlier Ceratopsians. It was probably about 5.5 meters long from head to tail.

By Nix, CC BY-NC 4.0

Diet: As a Ceratopsid, Diabloceratops probably fed primarily on plants, though it is possible that it supplemented its diet with meat from time to time for protein. It would focus on low-lying and medium-level plant material, less than a meter in height.

By Franz Anthony

Behavior: The frill and fancy spikes of Diabloceratops would have been primarily used in sexual display and other types of communication between members of the herd, especially since they were rather small all things considered. That being said, other Ceratopsians would use these features for defense, and it is thus likely that Diabloceratops did too, even though they didn’t evolve for such a purpose. Diabloceratops, like other Ceratopsians, would have been a very social animal, spending most of its life in herds with socially complex behavior. These herds would have aided Diabloceratops in defending itself from the local predator Lythronax, and any other predatory animals that may have attempted to attack it. Like other dinosaurs, Diabloceratops probably would have taken care of its young, and the social group would have aided it in doing so. Being a large herbivore with deadly weapons on its face, Diabloceratops would have been a very aggressive animal, not trusting anything that got too close to it or its family. It is possible that Diabloceratops herds also migrated too and from the Western Interior Seaway, based on the seasonal rainfall.

By Sam Stanton

Ecosystem: The Wahweap Formation is one of the earliest environments we know of from the charismatic and iconic Late Cretaceous North American faunas - those ecosystems from the Campanian and Maastrichtian which featured Ceratopsians, Hadrosaurs, and Ankylosaurs a plenty, all being preyed upon by terrifying Tyrannosaurs. Weirdly enough, this unique makeup of these ecosystems is unique to North America - while Hadrosaurs could be found elsewhere somewhat, both Tyrannosaurs and Ceratopsids were very rare elsewhere, Ceratopsids especially so. Instead, the world was frequented with many other kinds of large predatory dinosaurs (especially Abelisaurids), and Titanosaurs were some of the most common large herbivores. But I am getting off track - the Wahweap Formation is one of the earliest of these charismatic locations, and as expected, it has some of the earliest members of these groups to branch off, including Diabloceratops. The Wahweap Formation began as a very dry ecosystem, filled with sand and very brief wet seasons; over time, it became a pond ecosystem and - by the time Diabloceratops disappeared - a very fertile system of rivers running in from the Western Interior Seaway.

By Nathan E. Rogers, used with permission from Studio 252Mya

So, in the time of the earliest part of the formation, Diabloceratops was a living in an extremely seasonally varied environment, as it began to transition to more freshwater being present in later millenia from its earlier dry beginnings. The diversity of the later environments, however, was lacking in the earliest one. Here, Diabloceratops was preyed upon by Lythronax, and while some mammals, turtles, and crocodylomorphs were present, it is entirely possible that the great diversity of mammals and other animals to be found later wasn’t present quite yet. In the middle environment, when the ponds were coming in and things were getting more lush, Lythronax was gone - but now Diabloceratops was accompanied by the Hadrosaur Acristavus, similar to the later Maiasaura. There were many non-dinosaurs too, like turtles, though it is uncertain if the many mammals found in Wahweap are from the middle, lower, or upper parts of this environment.

By Nix, CC BY-NC 4.0

Interestingly enough, one of Diabloceratops’ closest relatives, Machairoceratops, is known from the upper unit of this formation - indicating that it is possible that Diabloceratops evolved into Machairoceratops, and never really disappeared from the environment at all.

By José Carlos Cortés

Other: Diabloceratops is usually found to be a Centrosaurine, the group of Ceratopsids with prominent nose horns and frill ornamentation, and usually little to no brow horns. However, a very recent analysis of Ceratopsian relationships found Diabloceratops to be neither a Centrosaurine nor a Chasmosarine (the other group of Ceratopsians, which includes Triceratops and its closest relatives), but rather outside both. Either way, Diabloceratops was a very early Ceratopsids, showing characteristics that are often found in common between both of the major groups of these dinosaurs - and showing how weird their headgear got even early on in their evolution.

~ By Meig Dickson

Sources Under the Cut

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