Koreaceratops - Swimming Ceratopsian?

Galvasean

The debate on whether ceratopsian dinosaurs could swim opens once again. Sadly, a consensus has not been reached yet.

The authors of the new study approach the possibility that Koreaceratops was semi-aquatic tentatively. The paper’s abstract states that the tall neural spines of Koreaceratops, Montanaceratops and other ceratopsians may have evolved multiple times as a possibly adaptation to swimming, but in the body of the paper they state that the evidence that these dinosaurs were regular swimmers is equivocal.

I am doubtful that the deep tails of these dinosaurs can be taken as a good indicator of their swimming ability. As the authors of the new study document in the paper, the tail shapes of each of these deep-tailed ceratopsians varies significantly. Koreaceratops had a tail with taller and taller neural spines approaching the tip—making the end portion of the tail the deepest—while in Protoceratops the deepest portion is closer to the hips, being in the middle of the tail or just a bit closer to the rest of the body. If all of these dinosaurs had tails that independently evolved to allow them to propel themselves through the water, it might be expected that they would all have tails with the same shape, namely with the deepest part of the tail being near the tip as this would give them the most thrust. Instead, the different deep tail types may have been involved in display or species recognition, in which case we would expect for there to be variation in tail shape from one dinosaur to another.

Full article here.



So what say you, evidence of an amphibious lifestyle or just another fancy way for dinosaurs to show off?