Navajoceratops
"Navajo horned face"
Type species Navajoceratops sullivani
- Lived
- 84 to 72 million years ago, Late Cretaceous
- Diet
- Herbivore
- Group
- Ceratopsians, Ceratopsidae
- Found in
- United States
- Named by
- Fowler and Freedman Fowler 2020
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
80 million years ago
Habitat
Rivers and swamps spread across what is now New Mexico. Bistahieversor, Parasaurolophus and Pentaceratops are also known from the Kirtland Formation.
Field notes
About Navajoceratops
What it was like
Navajoceratops was a horned plant eater from the chasmosaurine group, relatives of Pentaceratops. It is known from a partial skull with a large frill.
Its world
It lived in the Late Cretaceous in what is now New Mexico. Its bones come from the Kirtland Formation, a land of rivers and swamps shared with the tyrannosaur Bistahieversor, the horned Pentaceratops and the crested Parasaurolophus.
How it was found
Fowler and Freedman Fowler named it in 2020. The type species is Navajoceratops sullivani. It may be a link between Pentaceratops and later horned dinosaurs such as Anchiceratops.
Field gallery
More views of Navajoceratops
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 Navajoceratops.
The evidence
The science behind Navajoceratops
Which parts of the picture come from its own bones, and which come from its relatives.
From its own fossils
- A partial skull preserves the main frill bone, fragments of its side bones and a cheek horn.
- The rear edge of the frill has a deep central notch, deeper than in Pentaceratops.
Borrowed from relatives
- The missing face and body are restored from better-known chasmosaurines such as Pentaceratops and Chasmosaurus.
Still unknown
- The length and shape of its brow horns.
- Its body size and color.
- Whether it was a direct ancestor of later horned dinosaurs.
Discovery timeline
- 2020Named itFowler & Freedman Fowler
- 2024Family treeBarrera Guevara et al.
- 2026Family treeHolmes et al.
Key papers
The research behind what we know of Navajoceratops
Named it
Named Navajoceratops and Terminocavus from frill bones and proposed that they link Pentaceratops with Anchiceratops.
Transitional evolutionary forms in chasmosaurine ceratopsid dinosaurs: evidence from the Campanian of New Mexico. PeerJ 8: e9251
Read the paper : Transitional evolutionary forms in chasmosaurine ceratopsid dinosaurs: evidence from the Campanian of New Mexico (opens in a new tab)Family tree
Revised the age of Coahuilaceratops and proposed a southern branch within the wider horned dinosaur lineage that includes Navajoceratops.
Stratigraphic Reassessment of the Mexican Chasmosaurine Coahuilaceratops magnacuerna as the First Diagnostic Dinosaur Remains from the Cerro Huerta Formation (Lower Maastrichtian) Supporting the Southern Origin of the Triceratopsini. Diversity 16: 390
Read the paper : Stratigraphic Reassessment of the Mexican Chasmosaurine Coahuilaceratops magnacuerna as the First Diagnostic Dinosaur Remains from the Cerro Huerta Formation (Lower Maastrichtian) Supporting the Southern Origin of the Triceratopsini (opens in a new tab)Family tree
Found relationships among horned dinosaurs that challenge the proposed direct ancestral sequence through Pentaceratops and Navajoceratops.
New information on the holotype of “ Chasmosaurus ” russelli (Ornithischia: Ceratopsidae) necessitates the establishment of a new genus to receive the species. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 63: 1-20
Read the paper : New information on the holotype of “ Chasmosaurus ” russelli (Ornithischia: Ceratopsidae) necessitates the establishment of a new genus to receive the species (opens in a new tab)
Close relatives
Other members of Ceratopsidae
Sources: Wikidata