Udanoceratops

Udanoceratops (meaning "Udan's horned face") is a genus of large leptoceratopsid dinosaur that lived during the Late Cretaceous period of Mongolia.

[2] However, Polish paleontologist Łukasz Czepiński in 2020 pointed out that there are no referable specimens to Udanoceratops from the Bayan Mandahu collections, and it is most likely that these remains were confused with the concurring (and relatively large) Protoceratops hellenikorhinus.

[1] Udanoceratops belonged to the Ceratopsia (the name is derived Greek meaning 'horned face'), a group of herbivorous dinosaurs with parrot-like beaks which thrived in North America and Asia during the Cretaceous Period.

The toothless beak would have served to grasp and crop stems or leaves, and as in other leptoceratopsids, the teeth would have met with an action that combined shearing and crushing.

The feeding adaptations seen in leptoceratopsids suggest a diet of relatively tough food items, however little is known about the plants that grew in the Gobi Desert during the Cretaceous.

Fossil localities of Mongolia and the location of Bayan Mandahu; Udanoceratops fossils have been reported from the Udan Sayr (center) and possibly Baga Tariach (right) localities
Size comparison to a 1.8 m tall human
Reconstruction of the holotype skull