Dino card No. 1214 of 2,027

Mosaiceratops

Say it: moh-ZAY-ik-er-atops

Name means: “mosaic horned face”1

Ate: PlantsHorned dinosLate Cretaceous

Mosaiceratops was a small, plant-eating dinosaur with a beak and a frill on its head. It lived in what is now China during the Late Cretaceous, about 93 to 72 million years ago. This little dinosaur is special because it had a mix of features from different horned dinosaurs, like a mosaic.1 2

Lived

94 to 72 million years ago3

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

China (Henan Province)1 2

Food

Plants2

Length

1 m1

Weight

10 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 endas heavy as 2.5 house catsas heavy as 83 bananas

How big was Mosaiceratops compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Mosaiceratops had a mix of features from different horned dinosaur groups, which is why it's named after a mosaic.1

It was one of the smallest horned dinosaurs, only about 1 meter (3.3 feet) long and weighing around 10 kilograms (22 pounds).1

Unlike many other horned dinosaurs, Mosaiceratops had no teeth in its premaxilla (the front part of its upper jaw).1

Its skeleton shows that it was a ground-dwelling, active animal that walked on four legs.2

Mosaiceratops lived in a time when the Earth was warmer and had different plants than today.2

AI-made picture of Mosaiceratops — An AI-made picture of how Mosaiceratops 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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Myth buster

Myth: Some people think Mosaiceratops is a type of Psittacosaurus because it has similar features.

Truth: Scientists now think Mosaiceratops is a more primitive relative, and the similarities are due to convergent evolution, not direct ancestry.1

For dino experts

Scientific name: Mosaiceratops
Named by: Zheng et al. 20153
Group: Horned dinos
Family / clade: Neoceratopsia3
Classification: Ornithischia > Ceratopsia3
Age of the rocks: 94 to 72 million years (Turonian / Campanian)3
Rock formations: Xiaguan3
Countries: China3
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Mosaiceratops was named and described in 2015 by Zheng Wenjie, Jin Xingsheng, and Xu Xing. The fossil was found in the Xiaguan Formation in Henan Province, China.1 2
Still debated: Scientists are still debating whether Mosaiceratops is the most primitive neoceratopsian or if it's more closely related to Psittacosaurus.1

Where the facts come from

Mosaiceratops (en.wikipedia.org)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Mosaiceratops 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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