Dino card No. 1459 of 2,015

Prenocephale

Say it: PREN-oh-SEF-ah-lee

Name means: “sloping head”1

Ate: PlantsDome-headsLate Cretaceous

Prenocephale was a small dinosaur with a thick, round dome on its head. It lived in what is now Mongolia during the Late Cretaceous period. This plant-eater used its strong legs to walk on two feet.1

Lived

84 to 66 million years ago3

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Mongolia (Nemegt Formation)1 3

Food

Plants1 2

Length

2.2 m1

Weight

40 kg1

Artist's life restoration of Prenocephale — How Prenocephale may have looked, by AntoninJury. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Scientists still argue about colours and details.

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

Prenocephale had a row of small bony spikes and bumps on its dome.1

Its skull was rounded and sloping, unlike the flat head of its relative Homalocephale.1

Scientists think Prenocephale lived in high upland forests, not dry deserts.1

The first Prenocephale fossil was found by the Polish-Mongolian Paleontological Expedition in the Gobi Desert.1

Prenocephale was about 2.2 metres long and weighed around 40 kilograms, similar to a large dog.1

For dino experts

Scientific name: Prenocephale
Named by: Maryańska and Osmólska 19743
Group: Dome-heads
Family / clade: Eupachycephalosauria3
Classification: Ornithischia > Pachycephalosauria3
Age of the rocks: 84 to 66 million years (Campanian to Maastrichtian)3
Rock formations: Nemegt, Kirtland, Baruungoyot3
Countries: Mongolia, USA3
Fossil records: 6 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Prenocephale was named in 1974 by Teresa Maryańska and Halszka Osmólska based on a well-preserved skull and some bones found in the Nemegt Formation of Mongolia.1 3
Still debated: Scientists debate whether some other pachycephalosaurs, like Homalocephale, are actually young Prenocephale.1

Where the facts come from

Prenocephale (en.wikipedia.org)
PACHYCEPHALOSAURlA, A NEW SUBORDER OF ORNITHISCHIAN DINOSAURS (palaeontologia.pan.pl)
Prenocephale 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.