Dino card No. 0367 of 2,015

Centrosaurus

Say it: SEN-troh-SOR-us

Name means: “pointed lizard”1

Ate: PlantsHorned dinosLate Cretaceous

Centrosaurus was a horned dinosaur that lived in what is now Canada and the USA. It had a big nose horn and a frill with small spikes along the edge. It walked on four legs and ate plants.1

Lived

84 to 66 million years ago3

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada, and Montana and Colorado, USA1 2

Food

Plants1

Length

5 to 5.5 m1

Weight

2 tonnes to 2.5 tonnes1

Artist's life restoration of Centrosaurus — How Centrosaurus may have looked, by Fred Wierum. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Scientists still argue about colours and details.

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

Centrosaurus lived about 76.5 to 75.5 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous period.1

Scientists have found huge bonebeds with thousands of Centrosaurus individuals, suggesting they traveled in large herds.1

One bonebed near Hilda, Alberta, is thought to be the largest dinosaur bonebed ever discovered.1

Centrosaurus had a single large horn over its nose that curved forward or backward depending on the individual.1

The frill of Centrosaurus could grow over half a meter (68.8 cm) long in the oldest adults.1

Centrosaurus fossils are only found in southern Alberta, even though it was one of the most common dinosaurs in that region.1

The name Centrosaurus means 'pointed lizard' and refers to the small hornlets along the edge of its frill, not the nose horn.1

Myth buster

Myth: Centrosaurus is often confused with the stegosaur Kentrosaurus because their names sound similar.

Truth: Centrosaurus is a horned dinosaur from North America, while Kentrosaurus is a stegosaur from Africa. They are not closely related.1

For dino experts

Scientific name: Centrosaurus
Named by: Lambe 19053
Group: Horned dinos
Family / clade: Ceratopsidae3
Classification: Ornithischia > Ceratopsia > Ceratopsidae3
Age of the rocks: 84 to 66 million years (Campanian to Maastrichtian)3
Rock formations: Dinosaur Park, Oldman, Judith River3
Countries: Canada, USA3
Fossil records: 57 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: The first Centrosaurus remains were discovered and named by paleontologist Lawrence Lambe in 1905 along the Red Deer River in Alberta, Canada.1 3
Still debated: Scientists are still debating whether some Centrosaurus fossils actually belong to a separate dinosaur called Monoclonius.2

Where the facts come from

Centrosaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Centrosaurus in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

Every fact on this page has a number that points to its source. If we got something wrong, sorry, we are dino fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.