Dino card No. 0392 of 2,027

Chaoyangosaurus

Say it: chow-YANG-oh-SORE-us

Name means: “Chaoyang lizard”1

Ate: PlantsHorned dinosLate Jurassic to Early Cretaceous

Chaoyangosaurus was a small, plant-eating dinosaur that lived in what is now China. It had a beak and cheek teeth for chewing tough plants, and it was one of the earliest horned dinosaurs.1 2

Lived

152 to 133 million years ago6

Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous

Food

Plants1 2

Length

1 m1

estimate by Gregory S. Paul in 2010

Weight

6 kg1

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

How heavy was it?

as heavy as 1.5 house cats

as long as 2 house cats nose to tailas long as 6 bananas end to endabout as heavy as a house catas heavy as 50 bananas

How big was Chaoyangosaurus compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Chaoyangosaurus was about 1 metre (3.3 feet) long and weighed only 6 kilograms (13 pounds), about as heavy as a large cat.1

It lived around 150 to 145 million years ago, during the Late Jurassic period.1

Its fossils were found in 1976 by Cheng Zhengwu in the Chaoyang area of Liaoning, China.1

Chaoyangosaurus had a beak and up to 44 teeth, including conical premaxillary teeth and cheek teeth covered in enamel.1

It is one of the earliest known ceratopsians, the group that later included horned dinosaurs like Triceratops.1

The dinosaur's scientific name went through several spellings before being officially named Chaoyangsaurus youngi in 1999.1

AI-made picture of Chaoyangosaurus — An AI-made picture of how Chaoyangosaurus might have looked, made by a computer from what scientists know. It is a guess: the real animal may have looked different, and nobody knows its true colours.

you asked

Most asked questions about Chaoyangosaurus

?How big was Chaoyangsaurus?

Chaoyangsaurus was about 1 metre (3.3 feet) long and weighed around 6 kilograms (13 pounds), about as heavy as a large cat.3 4

?What did Chaoyangsaurus eat?

Chaoyangsaurus was a herbivore, meaning it ate plants. It had a beak and up to 44 teeth to chew tough plants.3 4

?When did Chaoyangsaurus live?

Chaoyangsaurus lived during the Late Jurassic period, about 152 to 145 million years ago.3 4

?Where was Chaoyangsaurus found?

Its fossils were found in the Chaoyang area of Liaoning Province in northeastern China, in the Tuchengzi Formation.3 5

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Chaoyangosaurus
Named by: Zhao and Cheng 19836
Group: Horned dinos
Family / clade: Chaoyangsauridae6
Classification: Ornithischia > Ceratopsia6
Age of the rocks: 152 to 133 million years (Kimmeridgian / Valanginian)6
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database6
Discovery: The first fossils were found in 1976 by Cheng Zhengwu in Liaoning, China. The dinosaur was officially named Chaoyangsaurus youngi in 1999 by Zhao, Cheng, and Xu, honoring paleontologist Yang Zhongjian.1
Still debated: Scientists are not sure whether Chaoyangosaurus was a very early ceratopsian or already a member of the group Neoceratopsia.1

Where the facts come from

Chaoyangsaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Chaoyangsaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
Chaoyangsaurus | Natural History Museum (nhm.ac.uk)
The earliest ceratopsian from the Tuchengzi Formation of Liaoning, China (exa.ai)
Chaoyangosaurus 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.

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