Dino card No. 1836 of 2,027

Tsagantegia

Say it: sah-GAHN-TEH-gee-ah

Name means: “named after the Tsagan-Teg locality, meaning White Mountain”1

Ate: PlantsArmoured dinosLate Cretaceous

Tsagantegia was a medium-sized armoured dinosaur that lived in what is now Mongolia. It had a long, flat snout and flat bony plates on its head, which made it look different from other ankylosaurs.1

Lived

100 to 84 million years ago3

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Tsagan-Teg locality, Bayan Shireh Formation, eastern Gobi Desert, Mongolia1

Food

Plants1

Length

6 to 7 m1

estimate

Weight

1 tonnes to 4 tonnes1

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

as long as 4 bicycles in a rowas long as 39 bananas end to endas heavy as 2.5 carsas heavy as 130 big dogsas heavy as 800 watermelons

How big was Tsagantegia compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Tsagantegia is known only from a single skull, about 38 cm long. No other bones have been found.1

The skull of Tsagantegia is longer than it is wide, unlike many other ankylosaurs.1

The bony plates on its head were flat and not arranged in a mosaic pattern like in other ankylosaurs.1

Tsagantegia lived about 92 to 86 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous period.1

It shared its habitat with the theropod Achillobator and the long-necked sauropod Erketu.1

Tsagantegia had a U-shaped beak, which may have helped it eat different plants than its relative Talarurus.1

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

?How big was Tsagantegia?

Tsagantegia was about 3 to 4 metres (10 to 13 feet) long and weighed roughly 1 to 2 tonnes (2,200 to 4,400 pounds).1

?What did Tsagantegia eat?

Tsagantegia was a herbivore, meaning it ate plants. It had a shovel-like snout that helped it browse on plants, unlike its relative Talarurus which grazed.1 3

?When did Tsagantegia live?

Tsagantegia lived during the Late Cretaceous period, about 92 to 86 million years ago.1

?Where was Tsagantegia found?

Tsagantegia was found in Mongolia, in the Gobi Desert, at a place called Tsagan-Teg.1 2

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Tsagantegia
Named by: Tumanova 19933
Group: Armoured dinos
Family / clade: Ankylosauridae3
Classification: Ornithischia > Ankylosauria > Ankylosauridae > Thyreophora3
Age of the rocks: 100 to 84 million years (Cenomanian / Santonian)3
Rock formations: Baynshire3
Countries: Mongolia3
Fossil records: 2 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: The only Tsagantegia skull was found in 1983 by a joint Soviet-Mongolian expedition. Russian paleontologist Tatiana Tumanova named it in 1993.1
Still debated: Scientists are not sure what the rest of Tsagantegia's body looked like, because only its skull has been found.1

Where the facts come from

Tsagantegia (en.wikipedia.org)
Tsagantegia | Natural History Museum (nhm.ac.uk)
Tsagantegia 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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