Outline: a typical ceratopsian
Zuniceratops
ZOO-nee-SER-a-tops
"Zuni horned face"
Type species Zuniceratops christopheri
- Lived
- 94 to 90 million years ago, Late Cretaceous
- Diet
- Herbivore
- Group
- Ceratopsians
- Found in
- United States
- Named by
- Wolfe and Kirkland 1998
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
90 million years ago
Field notes
About Zuniceratops
What it was like
Zuniceratops was an early horned dinosaur, about the size of a large pig. Unlike older relatives, it had two long horns over its eyes, and it had no nose horn. Its frill had holes in it. It is one of the oldest known horned dinosaurs from North America with brow horns.
Its world
It lived about 94 to 90 million years ago, in the Late Cretaceous, in what is now New Mexico. It shared the Moreno Hill Formation with the therizinosaur Nothronychus, the small tyrannosaur Suskityrannus and the plant eater Jeyawati.
How it was found
Wolfe and Kirkland named Zuniceratops in 1998. The type species is Zuniceratops christopheri, after the son of one of its finders, who spotted the first bones as a boy.
Lived alongside
Found in the same rock formations
Close relatives
Other members of Ceratopsoidea
Sources: WikidataNamed in: D. G. Wolfe and J. I. Kirkland. 1998. Zuniceratops christopheri n. gen. & n. sp., a ceratopsian dinosaur from the Moreno Hill Formation (Cretaceous, Turonian) of west-central New Mexico. S. G. Lucas, J. I. Kirkland, and J. W. Estep (eds.), Lower and Middle Cretaceous Terrestrial Ecosystems, New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 14:307-317