Leptoceratops

slender horned face

• leptos · Greek · slender, thin
• keras · Greek · horn
• ops · Greek · face

Leptoceratops combines Greek words for "slender" (leptos), "horn" (keras) and "face" (ops). Barnum Brown chose the name in 1914 for a small, lightly built ceratopsian. It lacked the large horns of its bigger relatives such as Triceratops, and the name highlights its slender build compared with those horned dinosaurs.

Named by

Brown

Year named

1914

Period

Late Cretaceous

Stage

Maastrichtian

Found in

Scollard Formation, Alberta, Canada, and possibly the Hell Creek and Lance formations in the USA

A small, mostly bipedal or facultatively quadrupedal protoceratopsid-grade ceratopsian. The type species is Leptoceratops gracilis. Some specimens from the USA have been referred to it, but the identification is less certain.