Dino card No. 0746 of 2,027

Goyocephale

Say it: GOY-oh-SEF-uh-lee

Name means: “decorated head”1

Ate: PlantsDome-headsLate Cretaceous

Goyocephale was a small, plant-eating dinosaur with a flat, bumpy skull. It lived in what is now Mongolia during the Late Cretaceous period, about 76 million years ago. This dinosaur was a primitive cousin of the dome-headed pachycephalosaurs.1 4

Lived

86 to 66 million years ago4

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Boro Khovil, Gobi Desert, Mongolia4 2

Food

Plants4 1

Length

0.6 to 2 m2 3

total length; range from 60 cm to 2.0 m

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

as long as 4 house cats nose to tailas long as 11 bananas end to end

How big was Goyocephale compared to YOU?

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

cool stuff

Fun facts

Goyocephale had a flat skull roof, unlike the domed heads of later pachycephalosaurs like Pachycephalosaurus.1

Its name comes from the Mongolian word 'goyo' meaning 'decorated' and the Greek 'kephale' for 'head', referring to the bumpy ornamentation on its skull.1

Goyocephale had sharp, fang-like teeth at the front of its upper jaw, followed by a gap and then smaller cheek teeth.1

The back edge of its skull roof had many small bony bumps that would have been the base of little horns in life.1

Goyocephale is known from a single partial skeleton that includes most of the skull, parts of the forelimb and hindlimb, and some vertebrae.1

Scientists think Goyocephale was more primitive than its close relative Homalocephale because it had a shorter sacrum (hip bone) and larger skull openings.2

AI-made picture of Goyocephale — An AI-made picture of how Goyocephale 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 Goyocephale

?How big was Goyocephale?

Goyocephale was a small dinosaur, about 60 to 150 centimetres (2 to 5 feet) long from head to tail.2

?What did Goyocephale eat?

Goyocephale was a plant-eater (herbivore). It had sharp, fang-like teeth at the front of its mouth and smaller cheek teeth for chewing plants.1 3

?When did Goyocephale live?

Goyocephale lived during the Late Cretaceous period, about 76 million years ago.1 3

?Where was Goyocephale found?

Goyocephale was discovered in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia, at a place called Boro Khovil.1 2

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Myth buster

Myth: All pachycephalosaurs had thick, domed skulls for head-butting.

Truth: Goyocephale had a flat skull roof, not a dome. It belonged to a group of flat-headed pachycephalosaurs called Homalocephalidae.1

For dino experts

Scientific name: Goyocephale
Named by: Perle et al. 19824
Group: Dome-heads
Family / clade: Pachycephalosauria4
Classification: Ornithischia > Pachycephalosauria4
Age of the rocks: 86 to 66 million years (Santonian / Maastrichtian)4
Countries: Mongolia4
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: Goyocephale was named in 1982 by Altangerel Perle, Teresa Maryańska, and Halszka Osmólska based on a skeleton found at Boro Khovil in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia. The species name honors American scholar Owen Lattimore.1 2
Still debated: Scientists are not sure exactly how old the rocks at Boro Khovil are, so the precise age of Goyocephale is still debated.2

Where the facts come from

Goyocephale (en.wikipedia.org)
GOYOCEPHALE LATTIMOREI GEN. ET SP. N., A NEW FLAT-HEADED PACHYCEPHALOSAUR (ORNITHISCHIA, DINOSAURIA) FROM THE UPPER CRETACEOUS OF MONGOLIA (app.pan.pl)
Goyocephale | Natural History Museum (nhm.ac.uk)
Goyocephale in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

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