Outline: a typical early ornithischian
Parksosaurus
"Parks's lizard"
- Lived
- 72 to 66 million years ago, Late Cretaceous
- Diet
- Herbivore
- Length
- about 3 m (10 ft)
- Group
- Early ornithischians, Thescelosauridae
- Found in
- Canada
- Named by
- Sternberg 1937
Size comparison
To scale
Scale in metersOutline: typical early ornithischian shape
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
70 million years ago
Field notes
About Parksosaurus
What it was like
Parksosaurus was a small, two-legged plant eater about 3 meters (10 feet) long. It had a beak at the front of its jaws and leaf-shaped teeth behind, with long legs for running.
It is a close relative of Thescelosaurus.
Its world
It lived about 72 to 66 million years ago, near the end of the Late Cretaceous, in what is now Alberta, Canada. Its bones come from the Horseshoe Canyon Formation, where it shared the land with Edmontosaurus, Saurolophus and Pachyrhinosaurus, and the tyrannosaur Albertosaurus.
How it was found
Sternberg named Parksosaurus in 1937, for a scientist who had first described the skeleton as a species of Thescelosaurus. It is one of the few small plant eaters of its kind known from that time in North America.
Lived alongside
Found in the same rock formations
Close relatives
Other members of Thescelosauridae
Sources: WikidataNamed in: C. M. Sternberg. 1937. Classification of Thescelosaurus, with a description of a new species. Proceedings of the Geological Society of America 1936:375