Protoceratops
by Kenna F.
My animal is the protoceratops. A protoceratops is a dinosaur that looks like a triceratops but without the horns. The head is round with a plate in the back of the head. It is 6 to 8.2ft. long, 3ft. tall, and weighs roughly 900 pounds. It has 5 toes, short legs, and a toothless beak. The protoceratops lives on land and in a place with a lot of plants.
All the major traits of the protoceratops are Vertebrates, Gnathostomes, Tetrapods, Amniotes, Sauropsids, Dinosaurs, Ornithischians, and Marginocephalians. Vertebrates are animals with a backbone. Gnathostomes are animals with jaws. The next trait is Tetrapods which are animals with four limbs. Amniotes have water tight eggs, which allow animals to lay their eggs on land. Sauropsids have a pair of openings in the palate. Dinosaurs are animals with a hole in the hip socket. Ornithischians are dinosaurs with a backward-pointing protrusion of the pubis bone. That means it makes the stomach bigger which helps it digest food and get more nutrients out of the plant, and all ornithischian dinosaurs eat plants. Marginocephalians are ornithischian dinosaurs with a frill or shelf at the back of the skull.
On our cladogram the protoceratops is most closely related to the triceratops. I looked at the cladogram and these two dinosaurs met at the closest node. The most advanced trait they both share is the bony frill or shelf at the back of the skull. I used the cladogram to figure that out by looking at the letter closest to both of them which tells me the trait and that is the most advanced trait they have in common. The most important difference between the protoceratops and the triceratops is that unlike the triceratops, the protoceratops doesn’t have horns.
Last updated April 7, 2007.