Pegomastax

What it was like

Pegomastax was a tiny heterodontosaur, a plant eater smaller than a house cat. It had a short, parrot-like beak and a pair of sharp fangs at the front of its jaws. Its cheek teeth sharpened each other as it chewed.

Its fangs may have been for defense or for display, since it seems to have eaten mostly plants.

Its world

It lived in the Early Jurassic, in what is now South Africa. It comes from the Elliot Formation, where it shared the land with its relative Heterodontosaurus, the long-necked plant eater Massospondylus and the hunters Dracovenator and Megapnosaurus.

How it was found

Sereno named Pegomastax in 2012, from a skull that had been collected decades earlier and sat in a museum drawer until then.