RESEARCH ARTICLE A New Taxon of Basal Ceratopsian from China and the Early Evolution of Ceratopsia Fenglu Han1,2*, Catherine A. Forster3, James M. Clark3, Xing Xu2 1 School of Earth Sciences, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, China, 2 Key Laboratory of Evolutionary Systematics of Vertebrates, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, 3 Department of Biological Sciences, The George Washington University, Washington, District of Columbia, United States of America *
[email protected] a11111 Abstract Ceratopsia is one of the best studied herbivorous ornithischian clades, but the early evolu- tion of Ceratopsia, including the placement of Psittacosaurus, is still controversial and unclear. Here, we report a second basal ceratopsian, Hualianceratops wucaiwanensis gen. OPEN ACCESS et sp. nov., from the Upper Jurassic (Oxfordian) Shishugou Formation of the Junggar Basin, Citation: Han F, Forster CA, Clark JM, Xu X (2015) A northwestern China. This new taxon is characterized by a prominent caudodorsal process New Taxon of Basal Ceratopsian from China and the Early Evolution of Ceratopsia. PLoS ONE 10(12): on the subtemporal ramus of the jugal, a robust quadrate with an expansive quadratojugal e0143369. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0143369 facet, a prominent notch near the ventral region of the quadrate, a deep and short dentary, Editor: Matthew Shawkey, University of Akron, and strongly rugose texturing on the lateral surface of the dentary. Hualianceratops shares UNITED STATES several derived characters with both Psittacosaurus and the basal ceratopsians Yinlong, Received: July 15, 2015 Chaoyangsaurus, and Xuanhuaceratops. A new comprehensive phylogeny of ceratopsians weakly supports both Yinlong and Hualianceratops as chaoyangsaurids (along with Accepted: November 3, 2015 Chaoyangsaurus and Xuanhuaceratops), as well as the monophyly of Chaoyangosauridae Published: December 9, 2015 + Psittacosaurus.