Pachyrhinosaurus

Chapter • Meet the dinosaur

Overview

Pachyrhinosaurus canadensis was a heavily built horned dinosaur that walked on all fours and reached somewhere between five and eight metres in length, weighing an estimated two to four tonnes. Its most striking feature sat right in the middle of its face: instead of a pointed nasal horn it carried a massive, rough-surfaced pad of bone known as a boss, with a second thickened mass above the eyes. The skull could exceed a metre and a half in length and ended in a broad neck frill rimmed with small spikes, while mature animals also grew long, forward-curving prongs from the top of the frill.

Chapter • Where it lived

Habitat

Pachyrhinosaurus canadensis lived roughly 73.5 to 69 million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous, on the low coastal plain that bordered the Western Interior Seaway splitting North America in two. The landscape was a mosaic of broad floodplains, meandering rivers, swampy conifer and fern woodland and more open ground covered with flowering plants, under a warm-temperate climate with pronounced wet and dry seasons. The key fossil localities lie in southern and central Alberta, Canada, especially the Horseshoe Canyon Formation and the Scabby Butte site, while related species come from the Wapiti Formation of Alberta and the Prince Creek Formation of Alaska's North Slope.

Chapter • Wild behavior

Behavior & Ecology

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Chapter • Scientific place

Taxonomy