Size Zuniceratops appears to have been roughly 3 to 3.5 meters (9.8 to 11.5 ft) long and three feet (one meter) tall at the hips. It probably weighed 100 to 150 kilograms (200 to 250 lb), making it substantially smaller than most Ceratopsidae. The skull bears a well-developed pair of brow horns, similar to those of chasmosaurs and primitive centrosaurs,
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Discovery and species Zuniceratops was discovered in 1996, by 8-year-old Christopher James Wolfe, son of paleontologist Douglas G. Wolfe, in the Moreno Hill Formation in west-central New Mexico. One skull and the bones from several individuals have been found. More recently, one bone, believed to be a squamosal, has since been found to be an ischium of a Nothronychus.
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Classification Zuniceratops is an example of the evolutionary transition between early ceratopsians and the later, larger ceratopsids that had very large horns and frills. This supports the theory that the lineage of ceratopsian dinosaurs may have been North American in origin.
Although the first specimen discovered had single-rooted teeth (unusual for ceratopsians), later fossils had double-rooted teeth. This is evidence that the teeth became double-rooted with age. Zuniceratops was a herbivore like other ceratopsians and was probably a herd animal as well.
