Bagaceratops Characteristics

Bagaceratops gets its name from its size. It was around 1 metres (3 feet) long, 0.5 metres (1.5 feet) high and weighed around 22 kilograms (50 pounds).

Bagaceratops was a plant-eating dinosaur that had a bony ridge along the back of its skull and more triangular skull than its close relative Protoceratops, but was otherwise very similar, having a beak but no brow horns. Bagaceratops evolved later but is considered the more primitive of the two. Bagaceratops had a large head, a bulky body, a parrot-like beak, cheek teeth, triangular cheek protruberances, a short snout horn, and a small frill on its head.

Bagaceratops, like all ceratopsians, was a herbivore. During the Cretaceous, flowering plants were geographically limited on the landscape, and so it is likely that this dinosaur fed on the predominant plants of the era such as ferns, cycads and conifers. It would have used its sharp ceratopsian beak to bite off the leaves or needles.

The first remains of Bagaceratops were discovered in the Gobi Desert during the 1970s by a joint expedition composed of Mongolian and Polish scientists.

Bagaceratops is known from five complete and twenty partial crania, the longest of which is 17 centimetres long. The skulls are spread throughout animals life cycle, so the growth cycle is relatively well understood, with the smallest being only 4.7 centimetres long.

Bagaceratops was named in 1975 (Maryanska & Osmolska).