Dinosaurs A to Z
Ceratopsidae

Titanoceratops

"titanic horned face"

Generic ceratopsian body-plan outline
You 1.8 m (5.9 ft) tall
Titanoceratops 2.6 m (8.7 ft) long
as long as 2 people standing fingertip to fingertip
generic ceratopsian body plan, scaled to length — not a silhouette of Titanoceratops
Length
2.6 m (8.7 ft)
Period
Late Cretaceous (75 Mya)
Place
North America · Mexico · New Mexico, USA
Food
Herbivore
Clade
Ceratopsidae Dinosauria Ornithischia Cerapoda Marginocephalia Big horned ceratopsians of the Late Cretaceous.

Titanoceratops (meaning “titanic horned face”) is a controversial genus of chasmosaurine ceratopsian dinosaur that lived in the Late Cretaceous period (Campanian stage, about 75 million years ago) in what is now New Mexico. Titanoceratops was named for its large size, being one of the largest known horned dinosaurs and the type species was named T. ouranos, after Uranus (Ouranos), the father of the Greek titans. It was named in 2011 by Nicholas R. Longrich for a specimen previously referred to Pentaceratops. Longrich believed that unique features found in the skull reveal it to have been a close relative of Triceratops, classified within the subgroup Triceratopsini. However, other researchers have expressed skepticism, and believe Titanoceratops to simply be an unusually large, old specimen of Pentaceratops.

What we know

  • Named by Longrich, 2011.
  • Body length estimated at about 2.65 m.
  • Fossils found in North America and Mexico.

What we guess

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