Outline: a typical ornithopod
Altirhinus
"high nose"
- Lived
- 110 to 101 million years ago, Early Cretaceous
- Diet
- Herbivore
- Group
- Ornithopods
- Found in
- Mongolia
- Named by
- Norman 1998
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
105 million years ago
Field notes
About Altirhinus
What it was like
Altirhinus was a large plant eater related to Iguanodon, with a thumb spike and a tall, arched nose. No one knows for sure why its nose was so high: it may have helped with calls, smell or display.
Its world
It lived in the Early Cretaceous, in what is now Mongolia. It shared the land with the small parrot-beaked Psittacosaurus and the ostrich-like Harpymimus.
How it was found
Norman named Altirhinus in 1998, from fossils first placed in Iguanodon.
Lived alongside
Found in the same rock formations
Close relatives
Other members of Neoiguanodontia
Sources: WikidataNamed in: D. B. Norman. 1998. On Asian ornithopods (Dinosauria: Ornithischia). 3. A new species of iguanodontid dinosaur. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 122:291-348