Dinosaurs A to Z
Ceratopsidae

Yehuecauhceratops mudei

"ancient horned face"

Generic ceratopsian body-plan outline
You 1.8 m (5.9 ft) tall
Yehuecauhceratops 3 m (9.8 ft) long
as long as 2 people standing fingertip to fingertip
generic ceratopsian body plan, scaled to length — not a silhouette of Yehuecauhceratops
Length
3 m (9.8 ft)
Period
Late Cretaceous (72 Mya)
Place
Mexico
Food
Herbivore
Clade
Ceratopsidae Dinosauria Ornithischia Cerapoda Marginocephalia Big horned ceratopsians of the Late Cretaceous.

Yehuecauhceratops (meaning “ancient horned face”) is a genus of horned centrosaurine ceratopsid dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of Coahuila, Mexico. It contains a single species, Y. mudei, described from two partial specimens by Rivera-Sylva et al. in 2016 and formally named by Rivera-Sylva et al. in 2017. It was a small centrosaurine with a body length of 3 m, making it smaller than Agujaceratops and Coahuilaceratops, the other two ceratopsids in its environment; the three may have been ecologically segregated. A ridge bearing a single roughened projection near the bottom of the squamosal bone, which probably supported a small horn, allows Yehuecauhceratops to be distinguished from other centrosaurines. Its affinities to nasutoceratopsin centrosaurines, such as Avaceratops and Nasutoceratops, are supported by various morphological similarities to the former.

What we know

  • Named by Rivera-Sylva et al., 2017.
  • Body length estimated at about 3 m.
  • Fossils found in Mexico.

What we guess

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