What's the deal with the skin(?) on Protoceratops head?

[Faelrin]

Not a new find by any means, but while researching for my BotM Medusaceratops review, I found out about AMNH FARB 6418, which I don't recall reading about before, which seems to have extensive skin remains on the skull. I don't have access to the original paper (Brown et al, 1940, The structure and relationships of Protoceratops), since every online copy I've found seems paywalled so far, and the only descriptions of the material I found have come from an image posted on instagram while I was searching for ceratopsian skin impressions, or from a blog post (see further below).

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cr2PNd7rphy/



Within this 2022 paper from Bell et al, it mentions the material has been destroyed in preparation of the specimen, meaning no future studies can verify if what was there was really skin, or something else going on.

There's a good pic of the material on wikipedia now before it was prepared and removed. Taking it at face value it almost looks like it has scales on the beak, frill, maybe even cheeks. We know now that Triceratops seems to have had scales on its frill after all. However, not so sure about the cheek thing, because I recall this paper showing that was probably not the case after all for ornithischians. It may also just be a result of the black and white nature of the image.



The section describing the skin on wikipedia further leads to this blog post which shows some of the material had not yet been removed, and still survives to this day. Looking at these true color images of the material makes it a bit harder to say what's going on. Some of it does look like scales, but quite a bit of it looks like it could just be the sediment the bones were discovered within.

Really hoping it can be studied and properly published in detail, so there can be a better idea of what's going on with it here, but a shame a good portion of it is still gone for good, outside of the image taken before so. The blog post is really worth checking out as there are some high quality images of the remaining material. Until then, what do you folks think in regards to this?

[Cenozoic Fauna]

This is incredibly fascinating! thanks for posting about this @Faelrin,
really cool and intriguing info regarding this particular protoceratops specimen.
And also exceptionally interesting reading more about this unique protoceratops specimen with surprising extensive skin remains.

I remember first hearing about this from The Paleo Art of Joshua Ballze Facebook page, and was quite surprised to learn about this at the time of it being posted.

Really hope there is enough remaining material to be studied. Would definitely help answer other questions perhaps if enough tantalizing material is intact.

 Reminds me of the carnotaurus holotype situation, but at least there might still be enough tangible material to be studied.

[HD-man]

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cr2PNd7rphy/

I remember first hearing about this from The Paleo Art of Joshua Ballze Facebook page, and was quite surprised to learn about this at the time of it being posted.

I hope you don't mind the unsolicited advice, but one should take anything by Jurassic Jabber ( https://www.deviantart.com/jd-man/journal/SD-Why-I-can-t-take-Jurassic-Jabber-seriously-869779717 ) or Joshua Ballze ( https://www.facebook.com/groups/16791880228/posts/10159203738275229 ) w/a grain of salt. If the the 2nd link doesn't work for you, let me know & I'll PM you the relevant quotes.

[Faelrin]

I mean the skin chart I shared above is fine though, even if they might be problematic elsewhere? It clearly references the previous material on this matter, including the most recent 2022 paper. I'll have to take a look at these later tonight, since I'm going to leave and see Godzilla Minus One in less then a half hour.

Which reminds me, when I first posted this I said "maybe even cheeks", which was because I kind of took the 2022 paper at face value at the time, but I gave it a much more thorough look over while working on my BotM Medusaceratops review for the blog (which has been submitted recently, but not yet published), and what they called cheeks in the paper, were less like "mammalian style cheeks" that ornithischians were frequently given in the past, and more like the part of the skull there (forgot the term atm), which certainly confused me. I address this in my BotM Medusaceratops review.