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Gremlin

Say it: GREM-lin

Name means: “named after the small troublesome mythical creatures called gremlins”1

Ate: PlantsHorned dinosLate Cretaceous

Gremlin was a small, four-footed plant-eater that lived about 77 million years ago. It used its beak-like snout to munch on low-growing plants, and it had no horns on its face, just a tiny frill behind its head.2

Lived

84 to 72 million years ago3

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Fossils were found in the Oldman Formation of southern Alberta, Canada, and also in Montana, USA.2 3

Food

Plants2

Length

2 m2

Weight

40 kg2

Height

0.9 m2

at the hips

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

How tall was it?

at the hips

How heavy was it?

as heavy as 10 house cats

as long as 4 house cats nose to tailas long as 11 bananas end to endas heavy as 8 watermelons

How big was Gremlin compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Gremlin is known from just one fossil bone, a right frontal bone from the skull, which was found in the Oldman Formation of Alberta.1

Unlike its big cousin Triceratops, Gremlin had no horns on its face and only a small frill extending from the back of its head.2

Gremlin can be told apart from other leptoceratopsids by a ridge on its frontal bone that runs sideways from the middle of the skull to the top of the eye socket.1

The species name slobodorum honors Ed and Wendy Sloboda, who helped find the fossil and contributed a lot to Canadian paleontology.1

Gremlin lived about 77 million years ago, during the Campanian stage of the Cretaceous period.1

Scientists think Gremlin helps fill a gap in the evolution of leptoceratopsids in Alberta, between the older Gryphoceratops and the younger Unescoceratops.2

AI-made picture of Gremlin — An AI-made picture of how Gremlin 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: Gremlin
Named by: Ryan et al. 20233
Group: Horned dinos
Family / clade: Leptoceratopsidae3
Classification: Ornithischia > Ceratopsia3
Age of the rocks: 84 to 72 million years (Campanian)3
Rock formations: Two Medicine, Oldman3
Countries: USA, Canada3
Fossil records: 2 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Gremlin was named in 2023 by Michael J. Ryan and colleagues from a frontal bone found in the Oldman Formation of Alberta. The fossil was discovered with the help of Ed and Wendy Sloboda.1 2
Still debated: Scientists are still debating exactly how Gremlin is related to other leptoceratopsids, because the fossil is only a single bone.1

Where the facts come from

Gremlin slobodorum (en.wikipedia.org)
New Late Cretaceous Horned-Dinosaur Discovered In Southern Alberta | Department of Earth Sciences (earthsci.carleton.ca)
Gremlin in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

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