Cariocecus bocagei

Cariocecus bocagei is an extinct species of hadrosauroid ornithopod dinosaurs known from the Early Cretaceous of what is now Portugal. C. bocagei is the only species in the genus Cariocecus. It is known from a partial skull that was discovered in 2016 and subsequently given a scientific name and description in 2025. This specimen represents the first iguanodontian skull to be found in the country.

Cariocecus bocagei

Uncredited · 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
CariocecusPBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Ornithopoda
Life habit
ground dwelling, gregariousPBDB, for Ornithischia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Ornithischia
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Ornithischia

Time the record covers

At most 4.4 million years on record.

The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 125.77 Mya and 121.4 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.

Early Cretaceous — about 1 of 1 occurrenceEarly Cretaceous126–126 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences126–126 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences126–125 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences125–125 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences125–125 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences125–125 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences125–125 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences125–124 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences124–124 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences124–124 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences124–124 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences124–124 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences124–124 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences124–123 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences123–123 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences123–123 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences123–123 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences123–123 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences123–123 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences123–122 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences122–122 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences122–122 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences122–122 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences122–122 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences122–121 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences121–121 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences126.3 Mya120.9 Mya

1 occurrence of Cariocecus bocagei on record, most of them in the Early 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

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

Papo Seco — 38.41°N, 9.22°W

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The named rock units Cariocecus bocagei has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Cariocecus bocagei and its relatives

Early Cretaceous

Where Cariocecus bocagei and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

10 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Cariocecus bocagei, 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 reference

Each 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 Cariocecus bocagei

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

No 3D scan of Cariocecus bocagei 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

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 itCariocecus through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Bertozzo et al. 2025