Dinosaur fossils & 3D skeletons › Protoceratops
Protoceratops Fossil & 3D Skeleton
Protoceratops andrewsi
- Age
- Cretaceous, about 77.9 million years ago
- Found in
- Mongolia
- Length
- 1.6 m
- Height
- 0.6 m
- Estimated mass
- about 40 kg
- Group
- Ceratopsians (Protoceratops, etc.)
How this 3D skeleton was made
This 3D model is a reconstruction. Most bone shapes (226 of 232) are borrowed from close relatives and fitted to this species' size and body proportions. The bone shapes are not the actual shapes of this species' fossils. 4 bones were shaped from photos or figures of this species' own fossils. 2 are estimated.
From this species 4Borrowed from relatives 226Estimated 2
Bones known from fossils
232 of 232 bones are known from fossils.
Known 232Filled in 0No record 0
Tap a bone on the 3D page to see where each bone shape came from.
Sources
- 3D Skeleton: Borrowed bone shapes from the "Triceratops" template (O9c). The lengths of 10 body parts (head, neck, torso, tail, upper arm, forearm, hand, thigh, shin, foot) were scaled individually to match measurements of the 3D skeletal model of Protoceratops (specimen MAS 100.502) in Dempsey et al. (2025) Biol Rev doi:10.1111/brv.70026 (CC BY 4.0). Reason for using the "Triceratops" template rather than the list's group classification (Euceratopsia): small ceratopsians also use the 3D Triceratops template bone-by-bone (the Wendiceratops template was a planar cutout from a full-body diagram. 2026-09-26). The head is from skull drawings of Protoceratops and others. Individual bone shapes are not from this species, but from the template species. Origin of the template skeleton: [Size adjusted to commonly cited body length] Although this skeleton (template) has a total length of 6.56 m, it differed greatly from the commonly cited body length (8–9 m; no source cited in the article (commonly stated size); from English Wikipedia's "Triceratops" article), so for display the entire skeleton was scaled by 1.30 to 8.5 m (as the original specimen/drawing was a small individual). 3D skeleton: Sellers & Pond (20Posture (2026-09-30): Approximate angles visually read from bone orientations in Evans and Ryan 2015 PLOS ONE (CC BY) Fig. 3 (full skeletal diagram of Wendiceratops, walking posture) (hindlegs: front leg femur 17° forward, shin straight; back leg femur 5° back, shin 27° back / forelegs: planted leg upper arm 45° back, forearm straight; forward-swinging leg upper arm 10° back, forearm 65° forward). Orientations of instep and hand are estimated. Although the diagram depicts the hindlegs almost straight, they appeared pillar-like, so the hindlegs were bent to widen the stride: front leg femur 25° forward, shin 25° back; back leg femur 18° back, shin 30° back (estimated). Rather than a walking diagram of this species itself, bone orientations from a related species with the same walking style were applied. The neck was turned slightly sideways, and the tail was bent laterally (amount of orientation is estimated; the diagram only shows a lateral view).
- A per-bone table for ornithischians (horned, plated, and beaked dinosaurs) has not yet been found. Since there are no per-bone records, it is colored gray = unknown.
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