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Description

Bravoceratops polyphemus was described and named by Steven L. Wick and Thomas M. Lehman in 2013. It is known from the Late Cretaceous Javelina Formation in what is now Texas, United States. The genus name is derived from the Mexican name for the Rio Grande, "Rio Bravo del Norte" (wild river of the north). The specific name refers to the giant cyclops Polyphemus from the Greek epic poem, The Odyssey. The various parts of the holotype skull were completely disarticulated and scattered across an area of approximately ten square meters prior to fossilization. Many of the more robust remains, such as the horns, exhibit weathering and erosion. This circumstance suggests that the skull remained exposed for a time before burial. Although the recovered portions of the skull showed signs of fluvial transport, they were otherwise found in excellent condition. Two autapomorphies (unique derived traits) were originally proposed. Firstly, the median parietal bar (the bone bar between the frill openings) at mid-length splays out to the rear like a fan and its rear edge is not notched or embayed. Secondly, the upper surface of the bar is, at the midline, hollowed out by a symmetrical depression. It is this hollow in the form of an inverted tear that occasioned the specific name as it resembled the single eye of a cyclops, thus the allusion with Polyphemus. The authors assumed it formed the base of a horn-like epiparietal. This would imply that a second midline epiparietal (a small horn-like structure), unpreserved in the fossil, had been present. In 2020, paleontologists Denver W. Fowler and Elizabeth A. Freedman Fowler suggested that the parietal median bar of the specimen had been reconstructed upside down, and that the genus therefore did not have any distinguishing features, making it a nomen dubium.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/237282…

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/artic…

Description

Bravoceratops polyphemus was described and named by Steven L. Wick and Thomas M. Lehman in 2013. It is known from the Late Cretaceous Javelina Formation in what is now Texas, United States. The genus name is derived from the Mexican name for the Rio Grande, "Rio Bravo del Norte" (wild river of the north). The specific name refers to the giant cyclops Polyphemus from the Greek epic poem, The Odyssey. The various parts of the holotype skull were completely disarticulated and scattered across an area of approximately ten square meters prior to fossilization. Many of the more robust remains, such as the horns, exhibit weathering and erosion. This circumstance suggests that the skull remained exposed for a time before burial. Although the recovered portions of the skull showed signs of fluvial transport, they were otherwise found in excellent condition. Two autapomorphies (unique derived traits) were originally proposed. Firstly, the median parietal bar (the bone bar between the frill openings) at mid-length splays out to the rear like a fan and its rear edge is not notched or embayed. Secondly, the upper surface of the bar is, at the midline, hollowed out by a symmetrical depression. It is this hollow in the form of an inverted tear that occasioned the specific name as it resembled the single eye of a cyclops, thus the allusion with Polyphemus. The authors assumed it formed the base of a horn-like epiparietal. This would imply that a second midline epiparietal (a small horn-like structure), unpreserved in the fossil, had been present. In 2020, paleontologists Denver W. Fowler and Elizabeth A. Freedman Fowler suggested that the parietal median bar of the specimen had been reconstructed upside down, and that the genus therefore did not have any distinguishing features, making it a nomen dubium.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/237282…

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/artic…