Montanoceratops
"Montana horned face"
- Lived
- 84 to 66 million years ago, Late Cretaceous
- Diet
- Herbivore
- Length
- about 3 m (10 ft)
- Group
- Ceratopsians, Leptoceratopsidae
- Found in
- United States and Canada
- Named by
- Sternberg 1951
Size comparison
To scale
Scale in metersOutline: typical ceratopsian shape
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
75 million years ago
Habitat
It lived in Montana and Alberta during the Late Cretaceous. Edmontosaurus, Pachyrhinosaurus and Albertosaurus also occur in the Horseshoe Canyon Formation.
Field notes
About Montanoceratops
What it was like
Montanoceratops was a small horned dinosaur about 3 meters (10 feet) long, a member of the leptoceratopsids. It had a short frill and a deep beak.
Its tail had tall spines on top, which made it deep and narrow.
Its world
It lived in the Late Cretaceous in what is now Montana, in the United States, and Alberta, Canada. Its bones come from the Horseshoe Canyon Formation and rocks of about the same age in Montana, where it shared the land with Edmontosaurus, the horned Pachyrhinosaurus and Anchiceratops and the tyrannosaur Albertosaurus.
How it was found
Sternberg named Montanoceratops in 1951, for bones that had first been placed in another genus.
Field gallery
More views of Montanoceratops
Scenes reconstructed from the available fossil evidence.
Lived alongside
Found in the same rock formations
A rock formation can hold fossils laid down millions of years apart, so not every animal here met Montanoceratops.
The evidence
The science behind Montanoceratops
Which parts of the picture come from its own bones, and which come from its relatives.
From its own fossils
- A partial skull and skeleton preserve bones from the shoulder and hand.
- The shoulder blade of a young animal widens at its far end.
- Its hands had pointed claws.
Borrowed from relatives
- Missing parts are compared with small ceratopsians such as Leptoceratops and Protoceratops.
Still unknown
- Its skin covering and color.
- How its skull changed as it grew.
- Whether it cared for its young or lived in groups.
Discovery timeline
- 1951Named itSternberg
- 1998New findChinnery & Weishampel
- 2019Family treeArbour & Evans
- 2019Close relativeSłowiak, Tereshchenko & Fostowicz-Frelik
Key papers
The research behind what we know of Montanoceratops
Named it
Separated Montanoceratops from the genus in which its bones had first been placed.
Complete skeleton of Leptocertatops gracilis Brown from the Upper Edmonton Member on Red Deer River, Alberta.
Read the paper : Complete skeleton of Leptocertatops gracilis Brown from the Upper Edmonton Member on Red Deer River, Alberta (opens in a new tab)New find
Described another skeleton with a partial skull, shoulder bones and a hand, adding new details of Montanoceratops anatomy.
Montanoceratops cerorhynchus(Dinosauria: Ceratopsia) and relationships among basal neoceratopsians. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 18: 569-585
Read the paper : Montanoceratops cerorhynchus(Dinosauria: Ceratopsia) and relationships among basal neoceratopsians (opens in a new tab)Family tree
Named Ferrisaurus and compared its limb bones and relationships with Montanoceratops and Leptoceratops.
A new leptoceratopsid dinosaur from Maastrichtian-aged deposits of the Sustut Basin, northern British Columbia, Canada. PeerJ 7: e7926
Read the paper : A new leptoceratopsid dinosaur from Maastrichtian-aged deposits of the Sustut Basin, northern British Columbia, Canada (opens in a new tab)Close relative
Compared ceratopsian limbs, documenting pointed hand claws and the widened shoulder blade of a young Montanoceratops.
Appendicular skeleton ofProtoceratops andrewsi(Dinosauria, Ornithischia): comparative morphology, ontogenetic changes, and the implications for non-ceratopsid ceratopsian locomotion. PeerJ 7: e7324
Read the paper : Appendicular skeleton ofProtoceratops andrewsi(Dinosauria, Ornithischia): comparative morphology, ontogenetic changes, and the implications for non-ceratopsid ceratopsian locomotion (opens in a new tab)
Close relatives
Other members of Leptoceratopsidae
Sources: Wikidata