Re: Sneak Peak at Yale Torosaurus Sculpture

[Dino Guy Ralph <ralph.miller@alumni.usc.edu>]

You want cheeks?  Check out the cheeky hornbill hatchlings at 
http://avesinternational.com/softbillnurs.html      .
Lots more cheeky than Parsons' _Leptoceratops_ illustration at 
http://www.ohiou.edu/news/pix/LEPTOCERATOPS_2.JPG      .

Furthermore, ceratopsians had immense, powerful jaw muscles and teeth 
adapted for chopping up tough plant material in the manner of oversize 
shears.  I would think that these shearing tooth batteries (even more than 
grinding tooth batteries) would require accessory cheeks, as otherwise much 
of the processed food material would be shorn off by the jaws along the 
occlusal cutting edges of the teeth, and without retaining cheeks, the cut 
off material would drop to the ground.  Would you use a Vegimatic without a 
cover?  ;^)

Moreover (as Dr. Tom has noted) the teeth are laterally recessed within the 
skull, as in cheeked herbivorous mammals, and most unlike extant herbivorous 
reptiles, which aren't adapted for oral processing to the extent we see in 
ceratopsians.

Cheekless ceratopsians?  I wouldn't be so sure about that.

--------Ralph

Ralph W. Miller III
Docent at the California Academy of Sciences
Member of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology