Zhuchengceratops is a genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 of herbivorous ceratopsia

Ceratopsia

Ceratopsia or Ceratopia is a group of herbivorous, beaked dinosaurs which thrived in what are now North America, Europe, and Asia, during the Cretaceous Period, although ancestral forms lived earlier, in the Jurassic. The earliest known ceratopsian, Yinlong downsi, lived between 161.2 and 155.7...

n dinosaur

Dinosaur

Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...

. It is a derived leptoceratopsid

Leptoceratopsidae

The family Leptoceratopsidae, its name derived from the type genus Leptoceratops, is a group of several small neoceratopsian genera which appear not to belong to the clade Protoceratopsidae. They resembled, and were closely related to, other ceratopsids, but all discovered species are generally...

 ceratopsian which lived during the Late Cretaceous

Late Cretaceous

The Late Cretaceous is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous period is divided in the geologic timescale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous series...

 period in what is now Kugou, Zhucheng County

Zhucheng

Zhucheng is a county-level city in the southeast of Shandong province, People's Republic of China. It is under the administration of Weifang City and has a population of 1.06 million.-History:Zhucheng was originally known as Langya...

, China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

. It is known from a partial articulated skeleton including vertebrae, ribs, teeth, and parts of the skull and mandibles. The fossils were recovered from the Wangshi Group

Wangshi Group

The Wangshi Group is a geological formation in Shandong, China whose strata date back to the Late Cretaceous. Dinosaur remains are among the fossils that have been recovered from the formation.-Dinosaurs:-References:...

. This genus was named by Xing Xu, Kebai Wang, Xijin Zhao, Corwin Sullivan and Shuqing Chen in 2010

2010 in paleontology

-Anomalocaridids:-Newly named crustaceans:-Newly named insects:* A new family, Cascopleciidae, is published by Poinar Jr.* A new family of ceraphronoid Hymenopters, Radiophronidae, is published by Ortega-Blanco, Rasnitsyn, and Delclòs....

, and the type species is Zhuchengceratops inexpectus.

The recovered specimen of Zhuchengceratops likely represents an adult, and is slightly larger than most adults of the similar ceratopsian Leptoceratops

Leptoceratops

Leptoceratops , was a primitive ceratopsian dinosaur genus from the Late Cretaceous Period of what is now Western North America, at the same time as its giant...

, which was around 2 meters in length. Zhuchengceratops had a particularly massive and deep 50 cm-long mandible that is also thin transversely. This and a number of other autapomorphies unique to the genus lend it significance for increasing the morphological disparity and the taxonomic

Taxonomy

Taxonomy is the science of identifying and naming species, and arranging them into a classification. The field of taxonomy, sometimes referred to as "biological taxonomy", revolves around the description and use of taxonomic units, known as taxa...

diversity of the Leptoceratopsidae. As the third leptoceratopsid from Asia, this find exhibits the coexistence and radiation of two closely related clades, whose differences in jaw and tooth adaptation may represent different feeding strategies.