Oldest Horned Dinosaur in America Found

Published: 11th Dec 2014

The skull of the oldest horned dinosaur in North America has been discovered.  The tiny skull was only 8.4cm long and could easily sit in the palm of a hand. It was discovered in Montana and dates back to 106 million years ago. The dinosaur has been named Aquilops americanus and would have been no bigger than a crow.

Similar horned dinosaurs have been discovered in Asia and it is believed they migrated from there to North America about 110 million years ago.  Aquilops lived nearly 20 million years before the next oldest horned dinosaur in North America. However it was more closely related to the Asian dinosaurs than those in North America. Perhaps th most famous horned or ceratopsian dinosaur was Triceratops and this did not evolve until 40m years after Aquilops.

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