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Protoceratops

Filed under Cretaceous dinosaurs · Types of Dinosaurs editorial team

Mounted Stegosaurus skeleton with rows of back plates and tail spikes — Gary Todd from Xinzheng, China, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Pronunciation

pro-toe-SAIR-uh-tops

Name means

First Horned Face

Diet

Herbivore

Posture

Quadrupedal

Period

Late Cretaceous

Length

6 feet (1.8 meters)

Height

2.6 feet (0.8 meters)

Weight

900 pounds (408 kg)

Order: Ornithischia · Suborder: Marginocephalia · Infraorder: Ceratopsia · Family: Protoceratopsidae

Discovered in China and Mongolia, this forerunner of thehorned dinosaurs was the first dinosaur known through every stage of life. Potato-shaped eggs, found in the 1920's by Roy Chapman Andrews, were attributed to Protoceratops because of the great abundance of Protoceratops bones throughout the same formation. The unusual theropod Oviraptor was discovered adjacent to a clutch of these eggs and it was presumed that it was trying to steal and eat the eggs. The recent discovery of an egg, identical to the eggs attributed to Protoceratops, with an Oviraptorembryo, indicates that these eggs belonged to Oviraptor. While these were the first eggs found in Mongolia the first eggs ever found were discovered in France and described in 1859 as belonging to the sauropod Hypselosaurus. However, without an embryo, no egg can be definititely attributed to any animal.