Dinosaurs A to Z
Ceratopsidae

Tatankaceratops sacrisonorum

"bison horned face"

Generic ceratopsian body-plan outline
You 1.8 m (5.9 ft) tall
Tatankaceratops 6 m (19.7 ft) long
as long as 4 people standing fingertip to fingertip
generic ceratopsian body plan, scaled to length — not a silhouette of Tatankaceratops
Length
6 m (19.7 ft)
Period
Late Cretaceous (66 Mya)
Place
United States · Mexico · India · South Dakota, USA
Food
Herbivore
Clade
Ceratopsidae Dinosauria Ornithischia Cerapoda Marginocephalia Big horned ceratopsians of the Late Cretaceous.

Tatankaceratops (meaning “bison horned face”) is a controversial genus of herbivorous chasmosaurine ceratopsid dinosaur that lived during the Late Cretaceous period (latest Maastrichtian stage, about 66 million years ago) in what is now the upper Hell Creek Formation, in South Dakota. It is known from a single partial skull housed at the Black Hills Institute, BHI 6226, described by Christopher J. Ott and Peter L. Larson in 2010 as the type species Tatankaceratops sacrisonorum.

In 2011, Nick Longrich published a paper containing a brief re-evaluation of Tatankaceratops.

What we know

  • Named by Ott & Larson, 2010.
  • Fossils found in United States and Mexico.

What we guess

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