Dino card No. 0393 of 2,027

Chaoyangsaurus

Say it: CHOW-yang-SORE-us

Name means: “Chaoyang lizard”1

Ate: PlantsHorned dinosLate Jurassic to Early Cretaceous

Chaoyangsaurus was one of the very first horned dinosaurs, a small plant-eater that lived in what is now China. It had a beak like a parrot and tiny teeth to munch on tough plants.2 1

Lived

152 to 133 million years ago3

Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Liaoning Province, China1 2

Food

Plants1 2

Length

1 to 1.1 m1 2

Weight

6 kg1

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

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 Chaoyangsaurus compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Chaoyangsaurus is the earliest known ceratopsian, or horned dinosaur, that scientists have found.2

Its skull was only about 14 centimetres long, about the size of a large apple.1

It had a beak made of horn on its upper jaw, with four bumps on the cutting edge.1

Chaoyangsaurus had two pointy teeth in the front of its upper jaw, called premaxillary teeth.1

The name Chaoyangsaurus went through several spellings before it was officially published in 1999.1

Its fossils were found in the Tuchengzi Formation, which is about 150 to 145 million years old.1 2

AI-made picture of Chaoyangsaurus — An AI-made picture of how Chaoyangsaurus 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.

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Chaoyangsaurus
Named by: Zhao et al. 19993
Group: Horned dinos
Family / clade: Chaoyangsauridae3
Classification: Ornithischia > Ceratopsia3
Age of the rocks: 152 to 133 million years (Kimmeridgian / Valanginian)3
Rock formations: Tuchengzi3
Countries: China3
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: The first fossils of Chaoyangsaurus were found in 1976 by Cheng Zhengwu in Liaoning, China. It was officially named Chaoyangsaurus youngi by Zhao Xijin, Cheng Zhengwu, and Xu Xing in 1999.1
Still debated: Scientists are not sure whether Chaoyangsaurus was a very early ceratopsian or already a neoceratopsian, a more advanced horned dinosaur.1

Where the facts come from

Chaoyangsaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
Chaoyangsaurus | Natural History Museum (nhm.ac.uk)
Chaoyangsaurus 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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