Monoclonius
Monoclonius is an extinct dubious genus of herbivorous ceratopsian dinosaur found in the Late Cretaceous layers of the Judith River Formation in Montana, United States, and the uppermost rock layers of the Dinosaur Park Formation in Alberta, Canada dated to between 75 and 74.6 million years ago.

Hatcher, J. B. , O. C. Marsh , and R. S. Lull · Public Domain · 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
- CentrosaurinaePBDB
- 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.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 83.6 Mya and 72.2 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
13 occurrences of Monoclonius 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
13 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
5 formations
- Oldman Formation · Belly River Group5
- Judith River Formation · Montana Group3
- Kirtland Formation2
- Fruitland Formation1
- Cokedale Formation · Livingston Group1
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The named rock units Monoclonius has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Monoclonius and its relatives
Late CretaceousWhere Monoclonius and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.
Found in the same rock
12 taxa- Albertosaurus sarcophagus1 site
- Alligatoroidea1 site
- Bivalvia1 site
- Dinosauria1 site
- Gastropoda1 site
- Hadrosauridae1 site
- Kritosaurus navajovius1 site
- Lambeosaurus lambei1 site
- Plantae1 site
- Theropoda1 site
- Thescelus rapiens1 site
- Trionyx austerus1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 13 sites for Monoclonius, 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
8 references- A revision of the Ceratopsia or horned dinosaurs5
- The horned Dinosauria of the Laramie2
- Paleontological survey, resource assessment, and mitigation plan for the Bisti-Star Lake Area, northwestern New Mexico1
- Cretaceous and early Tertiary depositional and tectonic history of the Livingston area, southwestern Montana1
- Dinosaur hunting in western Canada1
- Monoclonius from southeastern Alberta compared with Centrosaurus1
- Cretaceous Eocene correlation in New Mexico, Wyoming, Montana, Alberta1
- Descriptions of some vertebrate remains from the Fort Union Beds of Montana1
Each of the 13 occurrences 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. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content3
Picture of Monoclonius
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Hatcher, J. B. , O. C. Marsh , and R. S. Lull
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
Photogrammetry
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Monoclonius crassus · AMNH:FARB:3998
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Monoclonius”
- 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 itCentrosaurinae through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Cope 1876