About the size of a pig, Protoceratops is the earliest known member of the family of horned dinosaurs. Its name means "first horned face." Many skeletons were discovered by an American expedition to Mongolia in 1922. This expedition also found nests with unhatched baby Protoceratops curled up inside eggs. The baby dinosaurs were only 12 inches long. The eggs were only 6 inches across and had been placed in rows around a bowl-shaped nest. Layers of sand separated the eggs from each other. These were the first dinosaur eggs to be found.
The closest relatives to Protoceratops were Bagaceratops and Microceratops. Protoceratops had a large face and a small neck frill. It had a large beak and bumps on its nose and above its eyebrows. These bumps were the first signs of horns that would develop in later dinosaurs. Later horned dinosaurs like Styracosaurus and Triceratops had big horns and were much larger than Protoceratops.
This fossil clutch of Protoceratops eggs was found just as it had been laid more than 80 million years ago.
Diet: Fibrous vegetation
Size: Length 1.8m
Weight 180 kg
Classification:
Family Protoceratopsidae
Infraorder Ceratopsia
Suborder Marginocephalia
Order Ornithischia
Time (million years ago): 85-78