Nasutoceratops
nah-SOO-toe-SEH-rah-tops
Nasutoceratops is a genus of herbivorous dinosaur that existed in the southern United States during the Late Cretaceous period. It could grow up to 7.6m in length and over one and a half tons in weight, and the name Nasutoceratops translates to ‘large-nosed, horned-face’, a reference to the two large horns protruding from its skull similar to those of Triceratops, and its distinctive blunt snout.
Discovery
Nasutoceratops is one of the most recent dinosaur discoveries, with the first fossils discovered in 2006 in the Kaiparowits Formation, Utah, when geologist Eric Karl Lund unearthed a number of bones including a partial skull and several vertebrae. The new genus was officially classified in 2013 given the generic name Nasutoceratops.
Palaeoecology
Fossil findings have shown that Nasutoceratops lived in North America around 75m years ago and lived near the shores of the Western Interior Seaway. It co-existed with many other dinosaurs including ankylosaurids, hadrosaurs and tyrannosaurids, as well as marine reptiles such as crocodilians and turtles, and the warm, wet climate of this period provided plenty of vegetation for Nasutoceratops to feed on.
Information
- Era
- Late Cretaceous
- Family
- Ceratopsidae
- Genus
- Nasutoceratops
- Height
- 3.4M
- Length
- 7.6M
- Weight
- 1.7T
- Diet
- Ground Paleobotany
- Egg batch size
- 2 - 4
