Chasmosaurus was the oldest of the long-frilled, horned ceratopsian dinosaurs, whose family includes Triceratops. It was a medium-sized plant-eater that had a long neck frill with large holes in the bone and narrow structures to support the weight of the frill. It would have had skin stretched over the holes in its frill. Chasmosaurus had medium-sized horns over its eyes, and a smaller nose horn.
Judging from the monotypic bone beds of the Chasmosaurus fossils, this animal traveled in single species herds. Since the frill of a Chasmosaurus would not be a very effective defensive weapon, there is speculation that it may have been used for identification and attracting mates. New discoveries suggest the possibility that Chasmosaurus and Pentaceratops might belong in the same genus.
The frill of Chasmosaurus has been described as "heart-shaped", since its bone structure is made up of two large 'loops' from a core bone.
Some finds have a few small bones, which may have grown from the edge of the frill. The frill may have been brightly colored too, to draw attention to its size or as part of mating display. But, the frill was so large and yet so weak (since most of it was skin stretched between the bones) that it could not have provided much functional defense. It may have just used to seem massive or control for temperature. Like most ceratopsians, chasmosaurs had three main horns on their face - one on the nose and two on the brow. Different fossil finds have produced vague results - one species of Chasmosaurus, named C. kaiseni, bore long brow horns, while C. belli had only short ones. While these were at first named as different species, it now seems that the long horns may have come from males and the short horns from females.
Interestingly, a Chasmosaurus specimen recovered by Sternberg was accompanied by fossilized skin.The skin seems to have had lots of large scales in evenly spaced rows among smaller scales with five or six sides per knob. Sad to say, not a thing can be learned of the color of Chasmosaurus from the known fossil skin samples.
How do get to ride and do much more fun stuff with this member of the family of dinosaurs Titled: Ceratopsians?
1. Genetic scientists found solutions on how to make De-Extinction more than a reality?
2. You go to your home town's Zoo's latest attraction of Prehistoric sizes?
3. There is always more possibilities for the Chasmosaurus?
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