SINOCERATOPS

Sinoceratops zhuchengensis

Etymology: Zhucheng's chinese horned face

Nickname: "Sinoke"

Classification: Marginocephalia, Ceratopsidae

Diet: Herbivore

Size: 6.5 meters long

Provenance: Xingezhuang Formation, China - Late Cretaceous, Campanian stage, 77.3 - 73.5 million years ago

Movie appearances: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018); Jurassic World: Dominion (2022)

Sinoceratops zhuchengensis is a ceratopsid marginocephalian dinosaur that lived in China during the late Cretaceous, around 75 million years ago. It is characterized by the forward-curving frill horns that run on the top of the frill.

When Sinoceratops was resurrected, its genome was incomplete, so it was complemented, at least partially, with the genome of other ceratopsians, such as Pachyrhinosaurus, though efforts were made to minimize the impact of its physical appearance.

Upon resurrection, Sinoceratops was revealed to be a herbivore that tolerated the company of other herbivorous species of dinosaurs. They're curious animals, often observed approaching humans amicably, even licking them.

Sinoceratops was resurrected in the early 2010s for Jurassic World, and roamed free on the island since the collapse of the park in 2015. The Nublar Six encountered these dinosaurs, with one of the members, Sammy Gutierrez, taking a saliva sample of this ceratopsid to send it off to InGen's rival company Mantah Corp. Sinoceratops was also one of the victims of the Scorpios rex hybrid. The saliva sample obtained by Gutierrez was utilized by Mantah Corp to create a hybrid between Sinoceratops and Spinosaurus, named Spinoceratops. The Sinoceratops became endangered in 2018, when Mount Sibo threatened to erupt, leading the Dinosaur Protection Group to go to Isla Nublar to try and rescue this and other species of dinosaurs. These were brought ilegally by a mercenary group led by Eli Mills, taking this species and others for auction in Lockwood Manor, located in California, however, when an accidental gas leak threatens to kill all the rescued dinosaurs, Maisie Lockwood releases the dinosaurs in the american wilderness, including Sinoceratops.

Once free in the wild, Sinoceratops was often the subject of illegal dinosaur trade. In one incident, Sinoceratops were kept corralled on a farm, until they were liberated by the Dinosaur Liberation Now movement. During a raid on the French Intelligence, in Valletta, Malta, Sinoceratops were seen roaming around the city, causing havok. In another situation, in 2022, involving the Nublar Six, Sinoceratops were shown displaying angry behaviors in the context of a stampede, showing that these horned dinosaurs can be dangerous when threatened. Sinoceratops were introduced into the Biosyn Research Facility, located in the Dolomites in Italy, a highly advanced and isolated dinosaur preserve. Sinoceratops however remained wild animals in some places, especially in Africa, where they were introduced and were often seen herding next to african bush elephants.

FILM vs. REALITY

Sinoceratops in the film shares some similarities with its real life counterpart. Like it, it was a large herbivore with a large nasal horn and a frill that has characteristic forward-facing horns on its top. But other details are depicted wrongly. The head of the film's recreation is proportionally too large and the body proportions resemble more of a rhino's than that of an actual ceratopsid. The arrangement of the frill horns is also slightly erroneous compared to its real life counterpart. The real life Sinoceratops had holes on its frill, but unlike the movies, these were covered in flesh and skin, in real life. The size of the movie Sinoceratops is also exaggerated, being about the size of a Triceratops, when in reality, Sinoceratops was smaller. The feet of the movie Sinoceratops do not correspond with what the real life animal looked like. Instead of having front feet that looked like those of a rhino, the front feet of the real life animal were composed of three hooved fingers and two hoofless ones. The back feet of the real life Sinoceratops was also more similar to those of bipedal dinosaurs, with three large fingers and a fourth smaller one, all touching the ground, unlike the movie counterpart which is sometimes depicted with a hanging dewclaw.

Sinoceratops is depicted as an herd animal that often interacts with other herbivores. Although a social lifestyle for this animal is speculative, its pretty plausible still, considering the elaborate frills and horns of ceratopsids were, probably, used for sexual display and communication, and herd living is recognized in a number of other ceratopsid species. In real life, Sinoceratops would be coexisting with other large herbivores, like hadrosaurs and sauropods, so maybe mixed herdings occured, as it sometimes occurs in modern ecosystems with multiple coexisting large herbivores.