Probactrosaurus

Say it: proh-bak-troh-SORE-us

Name means: “before Bactrosaurus”1

Ate: PlantsBeaked plant-eatersEarly Cretaceous

Probactrosaurus was a plant-eating dinosaur that lived in China during the Early Cretaceous period. It had a narrow snout and long arms, and it could walk on two or four legs. Scientists think it was an early relative of the duck-billed dinosaurs.2

Lived

121 to 100 million years ago4

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Inner Mongolia, China2 3

Food

Plants2 1

Length

5.5 to 6 m2 1

estimates vary

Weight

1 tonnes2

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

as long as 3 bicycles in a rowas long as 33 bananas end to endas heavy as 33 big dogsas heavy as 200 watermelons

How big was Probactrosaurus compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Probactrosaurus means 'before Bactrosaurus' because the scientist who named it thought it was the ancestor of Bactrosaurus. That idea is no longer accepted.2

It had a small thumb spike, unlike later duck-billed dinosaurs which lost their thumb spikes.2

Probactrosaurus lived about 121 to 99 million years ago, during the Early Cretaceous.1 3

Its fossils were found in the Miaogou Formation in Inner Mongolia, China.2 3

Probactrosaurus had a double row of cheek teeth, with a third row of replacement teeth starting to grow. This helped it grind up plants.2

The first fossils were discovered by a Soviet-Chinese expedition in 1959 and 1960.2

AI-made picture of Probactrosaurus — An AI-made picture of how Probactrosaurus 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: Probactrosaurus
Named by: Rozhdestvensky 19664
Group: Beaked plant-eaters
Family / clade: Hadrosauroidea4
Classification: Ornithischia > Ornithopoda > Iguanodontia4
Age of the rocks: 121 to 100 million years (Aptian / Albian)4
Rock formations: Miaogou4
Countries: China4
Fossil records: 2 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: Probactrosaurus was named by Soviet paleontologist A. K. Rozhdestvensky in 1966. The fossils were found in Inner Mongolia, China, during a Soviet-Chinese expedition in 1959 and 1960.2 1
Still debated: Scientists are still debating exactly where Probactrosaurus sits on the dinosaur family tree. Some think it is a very early hadrosauroid, while others place it closer to the duck-billed dinosaurs.2

Where the facts come from

Probactrosaurus | Natural History Museum (nhm.ac.uk)
Probactrosaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Probactrosaurus 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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