Horned Dinosaur Names

Let's start with the frill. Every ceratopsian had a bony shield jutting off the back of their skull, and paleontologists are still debating what it was for. Maybe it scared off predators. Maybe it attracted mates. Maybe it helped regulate body temperature. Probably all three.

Then there are the horns themselves. Triceratops had three one on the nose and two huge ones above the eyes, each over a meter long. Styracosaurus had a single large horn on its nose plus a ring of long spikes radiating off its frill like a crown. Nasutoceratops had weirdly large, curving horns that looked more like a modern bull's than anything else in the dinosaur family tree.

And some ceratopsians had no horns at all just the frill. Pachyrhinosaurus had a thick, rough knob of bone where you'd expect a nose horn. Scientists think it might have been used for head-butting rival males the way bighorn sheep do today.

Kosmoceratops is the record holder among horned dinosaur names fifteen separate horn-like projections on one skull. It was found in Utah in 2010 and immediately blew everyone's minds.

Torosaurus had one of the largest skulls of any land animal ever. Its frill was so long it stretched nearly three meters from the tip of the snout to the back edge of the shield. There's a real debate among scientists about whether Torosaurus and Triceratops were actually the same animal at different life stages.

Einiosaurus is a personal favorite. Its nose horn curved forward like a giant fishhook instead of pointing straight up, which made it look like no other horned dinosaur on Earth. It was named using a Blackfoot word for buffalo, since it probably roamed in huge herds across ancient Montana the same way bison did.

Aquilops was tiny about the size of a cat and it's one of the oldest ceratopsians ever found in North America. It proves these animals were around way earlier than most people think.