Serendipaceratops facts for kids

Serendipaceratops (say: Seh-ren-dip-ah-SAIR-ah-tops) means "serendipitous horned face." It was a plant-eating dinosaur that lived during the early Cretaceous Period in Australia. Scientists named the only known species, S. arthurcclarkei, in 2003.

Discovery and Naming

Scientists found the first bone from Serendipaceratops in 1993. It was an ulna, which is a lower arm bone. They found it in Australia, near a place called Kilcunda in Victoria. This discovery happened during a project called "Dinosaur Cove." During this project, scientists looked for dinosaur remains at the bottom of a cliff by the ocean. The fossil was dug out from a small area of the sea floor that was protected from waves.

In 2003, two scientists, Tom Rich and Patricia Vickers-Rich, officially named and described the new species, Serendipaceratops arthurcclarkei. At first, they didn't think the bone could be from a ceratopsian dinosaur. Ceratopsians are a group of horned dinosaurs, like Triceratops. Finding one in Australia would have been very surprising! They even thought it might be from a meat-eating theropod dinosaur instead.

But a few months later, a friend named Dale Russell saw the bone. He noticed it looked a lot like the arm bone of another dinosaur called Leptoceratops. This dinosaur was a ceratopsian. This unexpected discovery led to the name Serendipaceratops. "Serendipity" means finding something good or useful by accident. The second part of the name, "~ceratops", is common for horned dinosaurs.

The species name, arthurcclarkei, honors a famous science fiction writer, Arthur C. Clarke. He wrote books like 2001: A Space Odyssey. Arthur C. Clarke was a friend of the scientists. He became interested in science and dinosaurs when he was a child. It's also interesting that "Serendip" was an old name for Sri Lanka, the country where Arthur C. Clarke lived for many years.

Scientists have only found one bone from Serendipaceratops. This bone, called the holotype, is known as NMV P186385. It was found in the Wonthaggi Formation. This rock layer dates back to the early Aptian age, which was about 115 million years ago.

Description

The arm bone (ulna) that was found is about sixteen centimeters long. The very top part of the bone, called the olecranon process, is broken off. The main part of the bone is quite flat.

Classification

When Serendipaceratops was first described, scientists thought it was a member of the Neoceratopsia group. This would have made it one of the earliest known ceratopsian dinosaurs. It would also have been the only one found in the Southern Hemisphere. Another bone, also thought to be a ceratopsian ulna, was found in Australia. It was a bit younger, about 106 million years old. The scientists who first studied these bones said they looked most like those of Leptoceratops.

However, later studies suggested this idea might not be correct. In 2010, other scientists looked closely at the arm bone. They found that it didn't look more like a ceratopsian bone than it did other plant-eating dinosaurs. In fact, it looked more like the arm bone of an Australian ankylosaur dinosaur called Minmi. Ankylosaurs were armored dinosaurs. Because of this, some scientists thought Serendipaceratops might be a nomen dubium. This means "doubtful name," used when a fossil is too incomplete to be sure what kind of animal it was.

But in 2014, Tom Rich and his team published a new study. They used statistics to show that the arm bone's shape and size fit with ceratopsian dinosaurs. They concluded that Serendipaceratops is a valid dinosaur species.