Open Paleo

Anchiceratops

Brown, 1914 ANG-kee-SERR-uh-tops /ˌæŋkiˈsɛrətɒps/

From Greek 'anchi' meaning 'near' or 'close to' and 'keratops' meaning 'horned face', indicating its close relationship to Triceratops.

83.6–66.0 million years ago Campanian–Maastrichtian, Late Cretaceous
Late Cretaceous stages

Anchiceratops is an extinct genus of chasmosaurine ceratopsid dinosaur that lived approximately 73 to 68 million years ago during the latter part of the Cretaceous Period in what is now Alberta, Canada.

Diagnosis

  1. Supraorbital horns massive at base, rising close together and divergent, curving outward then forward
  2. Crest large, thick and flat with small lateral fontanelles; border ornamented by large epioccipital bones
  3. A pair of short knob-like processes on the superior posterior end of the crest
  4. Squamosal intermediate in length between Monoclonius and Triceratops
  5. Fontanelles about half as large as in Monoclonius and wholly within the boundary of the postfrontals
  6. Epijugal attached equally to jugal and quadrato-jugal (differs from Triceratops where it attaches only to jugal)

Species

Anchiceratops ornatus Brown, 1914

Type species

Named for the ornate margin of the skull frill, which is edged by large, coarse triangular projections.

Holotype
AMNH 5251 , American Museum of Natural History
Material
Incomplete skull, anterior end and top of supraorbital horns missing.
Horizon
Horseshoe Canyon Formation, Campanian–Maastrichtian, Late Cretaceous , 83.6–66.0 million years ago
Locality
7 miles below Tolman Ferry, Red Deer River, Alberta, Canada

Notable specimens

  • NMC 8547

    Canadian Museum of Nature Found 1925 by Charles M. Sternberg most complete

    Lacks most of the skull but is otherwise the most complete skeleton known from any ceratopsid, preserving the spinal column to the last tail vertebra. Displayed as a half-mount with a cast skull; the traditional basis for the genus's postcranial anatomy.

    Dodson (1996)

  • NMC 8535

    Canadian Museum of Nature Found 1924 by Charles M. Sternberg complementary

    A complete skull, originally named as the species A. longirostris, now widely regarded as a junior synonym of A. ornatus. Its cast supplies the skull for the NMC 8547 mount.

    Sternberg (1929)

References

  1. Brown, B. (1914). Anchiceratops, a new genus of horned dinosaurs from the Edmonton Cretaceous of Alberta. With discussion of the origin of the ceratopsian crest and the brain casts of Anchiceratops and Trachodon. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 33(33): 539-548. brown1914a
  2. Sternberg, C. M. (1929). A new species of horned dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous of Alberta. National Museum of Canada Bulletin 54: 34-37. sternberg1929b
  3. Dodson, P. (1996). The Horned Dinosaurs. Princeton University Press.

    Sternberg never formally described NMC 8547; Dodson gives a brief description of it in this paper.

    dodson1996a
  4. Jones, B. (2026). The Princeton Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs: Ornithischians. Princeton University Press.

    Source of the hip height estimate, and the appearance features.

    jones2026a