Subscribe to download
Eotriceratops (Legacy Version)

Eotriceratops (meaning "dawn three-horned face") is a genus of herbivorous ceratopsian dinosaurs which lived in the area of North America during the late Cretaceous period. The only named species is Eotriceratops xerinsularis.

In early August 1910, Barnum Brown during an American Museum of Natural History expedition discovered a large dinosaur skeleton in the Dry Island site, on the west bank of the Red Deer River in southern Alberta, Canada. Brown, however, neglected this discovery as he was more interested in the many Albertosaurus specimens present in the area. Unaware of Brown's find, in 2001 a team of the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology and the Canadian Museum of Nature mounted an expedition to the Dry Island. The expedition's cook, Glen Guthrie, rediscovered the skeleton by accident.

Eotriceratops was named and described by Xiao-Chun Wu, Donald B. Brinkman, David A. Eberth and Dennis R. Braman in 2007. The type species is Eotriceratops xerinsularis. The generic name combines a Greek ἠώς, èos, "dawn", with the name of the genus Triceratops, in reference to an older age relative to that form. The specific name xerinsularis, means "of the dry island", from Greek ξηρός, xèros, "dry", and Latin insula, "island" and is a reference to the Dry Island Buffalo Jump Provincial Park where its remains were found.