Re: Biting Ceratop{s}ians (ecology)

[Phillip Bigelow <n8010095@henson.cc.wwu.edu>]

>On a further thread, threatened ceratopsians would have fled into the forests
>they inhabited. I don't think any ceratopsians are known from plains, pampas,
>grasslands or savannahs, can anyone prove otherwise? 

You raise an interesting point. But it may be impossible to prove or disprove
your statement, particularly when discussing Triceratops. 
  Protoceratops is found in abundance in Asia in arid aeolian deposits (i.e.,
ancient wind-blown deserts) that most likely had small scrub vegetation. 
HOWEVER, in North America,
*Complete* Triceratops skeletons have been found in only two paleo-environments:
river channel deposits; and muddy floodplain river deposits.  Both of these
environments tell us nothing about the predominant ecology of the area; they
only tell us about the environment in and around a river system.
Sedimentologically-speaking, plains, pampas, grassland, and savannahs are not
preservable *intact* in the geologic record.  (I should qualify
that, and say that I have never heard of a "plains-" or "grassland-depositional
environment" ever mentioned in the geologic literature.) 
It seems that nearly all that we know of the flora and fauna
in the Hell Creek Formation comes from fluvial and swampy deposits.  A good 
guess for the Hell Creek river system would be a "paleo-ripparian habitat"...but
that doesn't tell us anything about the ecology a short distance away from the
river. 
  Most of what we know about the forests that existed in the Hell Creek
Formation come from jumbles of leaves that were washed into a river
channel or onto a river floodplain. This also says nothing about
the origin of the leaves. The leaves could have been carried 50 miles downstream
from where they fell off the trees.  Un-natural associations of flora would be
preserved in these river deposits.  Dr. Kirk Johnson has done most of the
recent work on the Maastrichtian flora of the northern great plains,
including Triceratops' home, the Hell Creek Formation. 
 IMHO, we will probably never have a GOOD idea of what a plains-dinosaur ecology
looked like, just as we will probably never have a good idea of what a 
mountain-dinosaur ecology looked like (if one ever existed).  These habitats
don't get preserved in the fossil record (although a mish-mash of their
flora and fauna get washed down into the lowlands and into the sea).