| abstract
| - Expeditions mounted to search for ceratopsians in southeast Asia and central South America have been plagued with failure, and few researches were willing to risk their lives tramping through the sodden jungle in search of ceratopsians, especially when so many interesting species could be studied in the more hospitable grasslands and forests. Spec’s scientific community, therefore, responded with shock to Portuguese specbiologist João Boto’s proposal of a new ceratopsian-finding expedition. Boto’s plan was to lead a team of researchers deep into the jungles of Borneo with the objective of studying this fascinating creature in its native habitat. He succeeded. The secretive enigmoceratops was first described by Boto on an earlier expedition. This preliminary description was based only upon an eyewitness sighting, and Boto was unable to ascertain much about the creature’s behavior or anatomy. A later expedition conducted by Brian Choo around Spec’s Sumatra and Malay Peninsula managed to collect and preserve several dead enigmoceratops specimens, from which Choo was able to deduce something of the creature’s phylogeny, labeling it a basal brachioceratopsian (a classification which stands to this day). Choo’s own comments on the species appear in his monograph on Cenoceratopsia: "It seem preposterous to think that this, the smallest of the Asian ceratopsians could be a close relative of the titanic undaurs, but Enigmoceratops faustuosus displays all the key anatomical features of the Brachioceratopsia. The enigmoceratops dwells in tropical forests on the Malayan Peninsula, Borneo, Sumatra and Java. This 1.5 metre long animal daintily trots over the leaf litter, picking up fallen fruit, especially spiny ones ignored by ornithopods. They can often be found in regrowth areas, raising their heads to pluck leaves and fruit from low branches." Aside from the Choo study, this odd little species was largely neglected by specbiologists. Enigmoceratops could well have remained an enigma, had not the species’ original describer, João, mounted his expedition to Spec’s island of Borneo. Spec’s Borneo is a challenging subject for study, as much of the island is covered in poorly-explored virgin jungle. The ill-fated Shitashi-Berliner expedition brought a spotlight to bear on the island as specbiologists searched for the vicious "ninja" that had killed Shitashi, the latest expedition actually obtaining a specimen of the deadly deinonychosaur. As well as a slightly more detailed description of the ninja, the expedition also brought back some tantalizing photographs of a ceratopsian that the researchers of expedition had labeled a "Borneo undaur" (a more derived brachioceratopsian that inhabits Bornean lowlands). Boto, however, studied the photographs and concluded that the animal they depicted was far too small to be a undaur and concluded that it must be an enigmoceratops. The first enigmoceratops specimen, described by João Boto, came from southeast Asia, the Malayan Peninsula, what would in our home time-line would be Thailand and Malaysia. The little ceratopsians have also been seen farther north (what would be Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam), by unverified eyewitnesses, but it seems the greatest enigmoceratops population density is to be found on the islands off the coast of the peninsula. Choo collected his specimens from the island of Sumatra, where the species was apparently quite common. The Australian specbiologist was quoted as saying of the enigmoceratops, "[They were] absolutely everywhere. You couldn’t shoot and not hit the damn things." Luckily for the enigmoceratops, Choo’s stay on Sumatra was short, and he did not visit Borneo at all, although he did note that enigmoceratops had been sighted on the island. Most importunately, the specimens Choo collected from Sumatra and from the Malaysian Peninsula varied from each other in several respects. The island specimens were universally darker of color and larger than their mainland counterparts. Most scholars consider all engimoceratops populations to be co-specific, but without attempting to interbreed individuals from the two populations, this theory is impossible to verify. Boto, noting that the creature in the Borneo photographs was distinct from both the Sumatran and mainland enigmoceratops proposed an expedition to Borneo, with the specific objective of observing and capturing a live enigmoceratops. To supplement his expedition crew, Boto included Brian Choo, author of the most definitive report on enigmoceratops, Matti Aumala, the world expert on deinonychosaurs (another notable element of Bornean fauna), and Daniel Bensen, editor of the Speculative Dinosaur Project. Each agreed to accompany Boto in the search for his "missing link among ceratopsians".
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