Dinosaurs / Cretaceous / Wendiceratops
Wendiceratops
Cretaceous WEN-dee-SEH-rah-tops, “Wendy's horned face”
Wendiceratops was a beautifully ornamented centrosaurine dinosaur that lived during the Late Cretaceous in southern Alberta, Canada. Measuring up to six metres long and weighing about two tonnes, it was a robust four-legged herbivore comparable in mass to a white rhinoceros. Discovered by renowned fossil hunter Wendy Sloboda, from whom it takes its name, the genus is known from a rich bonebed containing remains of multiple individuals. The skull of Wendiceratops was remarkably dramatic, crowned with an array of forward-curling, hook-like hornlets running along the upper border of its neck frill. It also possessed an upright horn over its nose and modest horns over the eyes. Wendiceratops is one of the earliest known centrosaurines with well-preserved facial ornament, providing palaeontologists with crucial evidence on how skull horns and display frills first evolved within the horned dinosaur lineage.
It had multiple forward-curling hook-like horns along the top margin of its neck frill.
Where and when
Wendiceratops lived in the Late Cretaceous, from 79 to 78 million years ago (Campanian age). Its remains come from Canada, in the Oldman Formation.
The numbers
Length 5.3 m (estimates run from 4.5 to 6 m). Mass about 1.9 t. Hip height about 1.8 m. That is 3.1 human-lengths, or 0.47 of a double-decker bus. These are estimates from partial skeleton; fields marked estimated by the site are length, mass, hip height.