Dinosaurs A to Z
Leptoceratopsidae

Cerasinops hodgskissi

"cherry face"

Generic ceratopsian body-plan outline
You 1.8 m (5.9 ft) tall
Cerasinops 2.5 m (8.2 ft) long
as long as 2 people standing fingertip to fingertip
generic ceratopsian body plan, scaled to length — not a silhouette of Cerasinops
Length
2.5 m (8.2 ft)
Period
Late Cretaceous (80.2–77 Mya)
Place
North America · Asia · Montana, USA
Food
Herbivore
Clade
Leptoceratopsidae
Cerasinops reconstruction by Nobu Tamura (http://spinops.blogspot.com)
Reconstruction · Nobu Tamura (http://spinops.blogspot.com) (CC-BY)

Cerasinops (meaning ‘cherry face’) was a small ceratopsian dinosaur. It lived during the Campanian of the late Cretaceous Period. Its fossils have been found in Two Medicine Formation, in Montana. The type species of the genus Cerasinops is C. hodgskissi.

Cerasinops was named and described by Brenda Chinnery and Jack Horner in 2007 from a specimen (MOR 300) almost 80% complete, indicating a total body length of 2.5 m and a body mass of 175 kg. It belonged to the Ceratopsia (the name is Ancient Greek for ‘horned face’), a group of herbivorous dinosaurs with parrot-like beaks that throve in North America and Asia during the Cretaceous Period.

What we know

  • Named by Chinnery & Horner, 2007.
  • Body length estimated at about 2.5 m.
  • Fossils found in North America and Asia.

What we guess

The reconstruction notes for Cerasinops — soft tissue, color, behavior — haven't been written up yet. Only the recorded basics above are filled in so far.