PBDB Taxon

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Morphology	Ecology and taphonomy	External Literature Search	Age range and collections

Pentaceratops

Reptilia - Ceratopsidae

Taxonomy

Pentaceratops was named by Osborn (1923).

It was assigned to Ceratopsinae by Nopcsa (1928), Huene (1950) and Tatarinov (1964); to Ceratopsia by Osborn (1923) and Rowe et al. (1981); to Ceratopinae by Olshevsky and Ford (1994); to Ceratopsidae by Hay (1930), Russell (1930), Lull (1933), Gilmore (1935), Sternberg (1949), Romer (1956), Huene (1959), Kuhn (1964), Romer (1966), Swinton (1970), Powell (1973), Wolberg (1980), Lehman (1981), Rage (1981), Russell (1984), Ostrom and Wellnhofer (1986), Carroll (1988), Ryan (1997) and Ryan (1997); and to Chasmosaurinae by Lehman (1989), Dodson and Currie (1990), Lehman (1990), Lehman (1993), Forster and Sereno (1993), Lehman (1996), Dodson (1997), Dodson (1997), Lehman (1998), Dodson et al. (2004), Farke (2004), Diem and Archibald (2005), Lucas et al. (2006), Wu et al. (2007), Ryan (2007), Hunt and Lehman (2008), Longrich (2010), Xu et al. (2010), Ryan et al. (2010), Farke et al. (2011), Farke (2011), Longrich (2014), Evans and Ryan (2015) and Fowler and Freedman Fowler (2020).

Species

P. sternbergii (syn. P. fenestratus)

Synonymy list

Year	Name and author
1923	Pentaceratops Osborn pp. 1-3
1928	Pentaceratops Nopcsa p. 185
1930	Pentaceratops Hay p. 230
1930	Pentaceratops Russell p. 156
1933	Pentaceratops Lull p. 108
1935	Pentaceratops Gilmore p. 163
1949	Pentaceratops Sternberg p. 45 fig. 1
1950	Pentaceratops Huene p. 351
1956	Pentaceratops Romer p. 639
1959	Pentaceratops Huene p. 122
1964	Pentaceratops Kuhn p. 58
1964	Pentaceratops Tatarinov p. 585
1966	Pentaceratops Romer p. 371
1970	Pentaceratops Swinton p. 259
1973	Pentaceratops Powell p. 118
1980	Pentaceratops Wolberg p. 42
1981	Pentaceratops Lehman p. 198
1981	Pentaceratops Rage p. 68
1981	Pentaceratops Rowe et al.
1984	Pentaceratops Russell p. 26
1986	Pentaceratops Ostrom and Wellnhofer p. 116
1988	Pentaceratops Carroll
1989	Pentaceratops Lehman p. 157
1990	Pentaceratops Dodson and Currie p. 612
1990	Pentaceratops Lehman p. 212
1993	Pentaceratops Forster and Sereno p. 14
1993	Pentaceratops Lehman p. 279
1994	Pentaceratops Olshevsky and Ford
1996	Pentaceratops Lehman p. 505 fig. 10
1997	Pentaceratops Dodson p. 12
1997	Pentaceratops Ryan p. 257
1998	Pentaceratops Lehman p. 895
2004	Pentaceratops Dodson et al. p. 496
2004	Pentaceratops Farke p. 4
2005	Pentaceratops Diem and Archibald p. 251
2006	Pentaceratops Lucas et al. p. 368
2007	Pentaceratops Ryan p. 391 fig. 12
2007	Pentaceratops Wu et al. p. 1261 fig. 14
2008	Pentaceratops Hunt and Lehman p. 1132
2010	Pentaceratops Longrich p. 692 fig. 10
2010	Pentaceratops Ryan et al. p. 185
2010	Pentaceratops Xu et al. p. 1634 fig. 3
2011	Pentaceratops Farke p. 5
2011	Pentaceratops Farke et al. p. 699
2014	Pentaceratops Longrich p. 294
2015	Pentaceratops Evans and Ryan
2020	Pentaceratops Fowler and Freedman Fowler

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Rank	Name	Author
kingdom	Animalia	()
—	Bilateria
—	Eubilateria	Ax 1987
—	Deuterostomia
phylum	Chordata	Haeckel 1874
subphylum	Vertebrata
superclass	Gnathostomata
—	Osteichthyes	()
subclass	Sarcopterygii	()
subclass	Dipnotetrapodomorpha	(Nelson 2006)
subclass	Tetrapodomorpha	()
—	Tetrapoda
—	Reptiliomorpha
—	Anthracosauria
subclass	Amphibiosauria	Kuhn 1967
—	Cotylosauria	()
—	Amniota
—	Sauropsida
class	Reptilia
subclass	Eureptilia	()

Rank	Name	Author
—	Romeriida
—	Diapsida	()
—	Archosauromorpha	(Huene 1946)
—	Crocopoda
—	Archosauriformes	Gauthier 1986
—	Eucrocopoda
—	Archosauria	()
informal	Avemetatarsalia
—	Ornithodira
—	Dinosauromorpha
—	Dinosauriformes
—	Dinosauria	()
—	Ornithischia	()
—	Genasauria
—	Cerapoda
—	Marginocephalia
—	Ceratopsia	()
family	Ceratopsidae
subfamily	Chasmosaurinae
genus	Pentaceratops

If no rank is listed, the taxon is considered an unranked clade in modern classifications. Ranks may be repeated or presented in the wrong order because authors working on different parts of the classification may disagree about how to rank taxa.

G. †Pentaceratops Osborn 1923

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†Pentaceratops sternbergii Osborn 1923

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Invalid names: Pentaceratops fenestratus Wiman 1930 [synonym]

Diagnosis

Reference	Diagnosis
N. R. Longrich 2014	Chasmosaurine ceratopsid characterized by the following combination of characters (modified from Longrich, 2011). Posterior bar of parietal “M”-shaped with distinctly bent lateral rami of the posterior bar and a well-developed median emargination of the parietal. Parietal posterior bar flat and plate-like in cross-section. Three large, subtriangular parietal epoccipitals. P1 curved dorsally or anterodorsally and twisted so that the epoccipital contacts the posterior margin of the frill laterally, and lies atop the frill medially. Parietal median bar with a slender, ovoid cross-section. Frill long and narrow, broader anteriorly than posteriorly. Terminal episquamosal enlarged relative to penultimate episquamosal. Postorbital horns slender, elongate, and weakly curved forward. Epijugal horncore spikelike and curving ventrally. Narial horn centered over external naris. Many of the characters that diagnose Pentaceratops are also found in Utahceratops: Pentaceratops is distinguished by the absence of the diagnostic characters of Utahceratops, including a dorsally concave posterior bar of the parietal, short orbital horns (Sampson et al., 2010) and a tall, triangular nasal horn.

Measurements

No measurements are available

Composition:

hydroxyapatiteo

Entire body:

yesg

Adult length:

10 to < 100o

Adult width:

1.0 to < 10o

Adult height:

1.0 to < 10o

Maximum body mass:

3000 kgg

Minimum body mass:

1000 kgg

Architecture:

compact or denseo

Ontogeny:

accretion, modification of partso

Grouping:

gregariouso

Environment:

terrestrialsubo

Locomotion:

actively mobileo

Life habit:

ground dwellingsubo

Diet:

herbivoresubo

Reproduction:

oviparouso

Dispersal:

direct/internalo

Dispersal 2:

mobileo

Created:

2005-08-25 05:45:20

Modified:

2005-08-25 07:45:20

Source: g = genus, subo = suborder, o = order

References: Peczkis 1995, Marsh 1875, Norman and Weishampel 1991

Age range: Late/Upper Campanian or 83.50000 to 70.60000 Ma

Collections (13 total)

Time interval	Ma	Country or state	Original ID and collection number
Late/Upper Campanian	83.5 - 70.6	USA (New Mexico)	Ceratops sp. (62549) Ceratopsidae indet. (53982) P. fenestratus (39231) P. sp. (64094 64096) P. sternbergii (34826 34827 39229 196511 199764 222481)
Late/Upper Campanian	83.5 - 70.6	USA (Texas)	P. sp. (191054)
Late/Upper Campanian - Early/Lower Maastrichtian	83.5 - 66.0	USA (Colorado)	Chasmosaurinae indet. (76715)