User:Abyssal/Ceratopsian paleobiogeography
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Ceratopsian paleobiogeography refers to the geographical distributions of the extinct ceratopsian dinosaurs.[1] Research into paleobiogepgraphy has implications for reconstructing ancient climates, extinction events, and the geography of the ancient world.[2] It can also help provide information about a group's evolutionary history that couldn't be inferred directly from their fossils.[3] Dinosaur paleobiogeography studies where evolutionary lineages originated, as well as where and how they arrrived at their final locations before going extinct.[3] Scientists have traditionally thought that ceratopsian paleobiogeography was a simple matter because ceratopsians were known only from Asia and North America.[3] Since the most primitive known ceratopsians are Asian and the most derived ceratopsians are were found in North America, paleontologists have generally believed that ceratopsians originated in Asia and spread from there to North America.[3] However possible fragmentary ceratopsian fossils from other locations have strained earlier consensus and suggest that the ceratopsians had a more complicated geographic history than formerly recognized.[3] Individual ceratopsid species tended to have small ranges.[4] Most species have only been documented from a single geologic formation.[4] In Late Cretaceous North America many ceratopsid species were unique to their own environment in a north–south series of distinct ecosystems.[4] If this interpretation is correct it has profound implications for ceratopsian paleobiology and behavior.[4]
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