Spinops sternbergorum
Spinops is an extinct genus of centrosaurine ceratopsian dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of Alberta, southern Canada. It was a medium-sized ceratopsian, reaching 4.5 metres (15 ft) in length and 1.3 metric tons in body mass.

Andrew A. Farke, Michael J. Ryan, Paul M. Barrett, Darren H. Tanke, Dennis R. Braman, Mark A. Loewen, and Mark R. Graham · CC BY 2.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- SpinopsPBDB
- Diet
- herbivorePBDB, for Ceratopsia
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Ceratopsia
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Ornithischia
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Ceratopsia
Time the record covers
At most 12 million years on record.
The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 83.6 Mya and 72.2 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.
1 occurrence of Spinops sternbergorum on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
1 occurrences- Late Cretaceous100%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
1 formation
- Oldman Formation · Belly River Group1
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The named rock units Spinops sternbergorum has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Spinops sternbergorum and its relatives
Late CretaceousWhere Spinops sternbergorum and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.
Found in the same rock
16 taxa- Aquilapollenites1 site
- Aquilapollenites quadrilobus1 site
- Cibotiumspora juncta1 site
- Circumflexipollis tilioides1 site
- Cyathidites minor1 site
- Droseridites1 site
- Heliosporites1 site
- Integricorpus clarireticulatus1 site
- Laevigatosporites haardti1 site
- Mancicorpus anchoriforme1 site
- Retitriletes1 site
- Scabrastephanocolpites1 site
- Siberiapollis montanensis1 site
- Taxodiaceaepollenites1 site
- Translucentipollis plicatilis1 site
- Tricolpites reticulatus1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Spinops sternbergorum, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
1 referenceEach of the 1 occurrence read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Spinops sternbergorum
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Andrew A. Farke, Michael J. Ryan, Paul M. Barrett, Darren H. Tanke, Dennis R. Braman, Mark A. Loewen, and Mark R. Graham
- Licence
- CC BY 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Spinops sternbergorum was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Spinops”
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itSpinops through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Farke et al. 2011