Pachycephalosaurus Facts For Kids
Pachycephalosaurus is instantly recognisable from its round huge hard head. it was like a walking battering ram, and the most famous of the hard headed dinosaurs. it has been in 3 Jurassic Park and world movies, or members of the family have and is a great dinosaur to learn about. So we have some facts about this amazing hard head dinosaur for you below.
We have 25 pachycephalosaurus facts for you below, after our quick facts for those of you in a rush! Don’t forget to check out our coloring pages, facts sheets and everything else we have dinosaur related before you go. They are great to collect and free!
Pachycephalosaurus Quick Facts
- It was 14ft long and would have weighed upto 990 lbs. (450 kg)
- Pachycephalosaurus head could be 9-10 inches thick and made of bone. it also had bony knobs and blunt spikes around the edges of it.
- Pachycephalosaurus is just TOOOO long to do that. it has 7 syllables and is one of the longest dinosaur names. You say it like this. Patch – ee – Seff – ah – low – Sore – Rus
- Pachycephalosaurus was a herbivore dinosaur which means it ate planets bushes and grasses.
- or…. Maybe it ate meat and plants as recent discoveries have shown it had sharp teeth in the front of its mouth.
- Pachycephalosaurus were alive between 70 and 66 million years ago during the late cretaceous period.
- Pachycephalosaurus name means “thick headed lizard” and the name comes from the Greek language.
- Pachycephalosaurus would have lived with Triceratops, Quetzalcoatlus, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Ankylosaurus and Struthiomimus
1: How big was Pachycephalosaurus?
Of the 3 famous Pachycephalosaur’s ( stygimoloch, dracorex and pachycephalosaurus) Which might actually be juvenile ( young) versions of the same dinosaur. (more on that later though) Pachycephalosaurus is the biggest, by quite some way. it was 14ft long and would have weighed upto 990 lbs. (450 kg) that’s quite heavy for a smaller dinosaur!
2: How heavy was the Pachycephalosaurus?
As we mentioned above pachycephalosaurus could be up to 990 lbs ( 450 Kg) heavy. However this is estimated, both the length and the weight as most information we have comes from jsut skull found. With the skulls being so think and hard i guess they were very hard to eat!
3: How long was the Pachycephalosaurus?
pachycephalosaurus could grow up to 14ft long when fully grown, and when standing upright would have been as tall as you. That is 5 to 6ft tall with that domed hard head adding 9-10 inches to its height!
4: How thick was Pachycephalosaurus head?
The head of the pachycephalosaurus is its most recognisable feature. It kinda has to be as that is the majority of what we have found! However, that head is pretty special. It could be 9-10 inches thick and made of bone. it also had bony knobs and blunt spikes around the edges of it. it was certainly the most think and armoured head of any dinosaur!
5: Did Pachycephalosaurus have good eyesight?
it is thought that even though it did have a petty small brain for 10 inches of boney skull to protect it, that pachycephalosaurus eyesight was actually pretty good. It hard large forward facing eyes and would have been capable of binocular vision. Handy to spot those predators coming at it!
6: How Fast Could the Pachycephalosaurus?
A pachycephalosaurus could move at a reasonable speed for a pretty large dinosaur. When scientists were trying to study if they used their heads to hit each other, maybe fighting over land or mates, they estimated that pachycephalosaurus would have a top speed for no more than 15 miles an hour. Still that’s pretty fast, and they would have been reasonably agile as well.
7: How to pronounce pachycephalosaurus?
Normally we wait till the end of the facts articles to tell people how to say the name of the dinosaur. However, pachycephalosaurus is just TOOOO long to do that. it has 7 syllables and is one of the longest dinosaur names. You say it like this. Patch – ee – Seff – ah – low – Sore – Rus.
Patch – ee – Seff – ah – low – Sore – Rus.
8: What Did a Pachycephalosaurus eat?
Pachycephalosaurus was a herbivore dinosaur which means it ate planets bushes and grasses. it would have been a low grazer as it was not as tall as other dinosaurs like the duck billed or serapods. It also had a beak at the front of its mouth and small teeth towards the back which lets us know it was a plant eater.
or so it was thought.
Recently another skull has been found that included the front teeth of a Pachycephalosaurus and they came as quite a shock. these front teeth were not the teeth of a herbivore but rather they were sharped like steak knives. Long sharp and perfect for cutting meat!
9: Did Pachycephalosaurus butt heads with each other?
There is a bit of a debate among scientists on what that 10 inch hard domed head was used for. It really does look like it would be used to hit things with, especially other dinosaurs!
10: What Movies Have Featured a Pachycephalosaurus?
pachycephalosaurus is a fairly recent movie star. It was in Jurassic Park – The Lost world when it was called Friar tuck because of its hard head, and then it was mentioned at the beginning of Jurassic World. A member of the family had a more important role in Jurassic world fallen kingdom when it attacked the auction and helped Owen and Claire out of there cell. We have to wait and see if it will be in Jurassic World Dominion.
11: When Did the Pachycephalosaurus become Extinct?
Pachycephalosaurus were alive between 70 and 66 million years ago during the late cretaceous period. . this makes them quite recent dinosaurs. It also means they would have been sharing their lives with both Triceratops and Tyrannosaurus rex!
12: What Dinosaur would eat Pachycephalosaurus?
Pachycephalosaurus was alive at the same time as t-rex. At 15ft long it would have made a relatively easy meal for the huge predator. As long as he didnt crack his teeth on that hard head though!
13: It was once thought that the Pachycephalosaurus skulls found were dinosaur knees!
Although we now know dinosaurs didn’t have kneecaps like we and other mammals do, a while ago this was not common knowledge. So when the 10 inch thick Pachycephalosaurus skulls were found it was thought that there were not hard heads at all, but knee caps of larger dinosaurs!
14: What does the name Pachycephalosaurus Mean?
Pachycephalosaurus name means “thick headed lizard” and the name comes from the Greek language.
15. Was Pachycephalosaurus a meat eater?
Although the idea seems crazy as this dinosaur has always been thought of as gentle herbivore, well kind of gentle -that hard head was used for something – recent fossil discoveries of a juvenile Pachycephalosaurus (or Dracorex Hogwartsia) was shown to have sharp steak like teeth at the front of its beaked mouth.
There is really only one reason a dinosaur needs sharp teeth and that is to catch food! So although we don’t know for sure it is starting to look like Pachycephalosaurus might at the very least have been an omnivore.
16: Were Pachycephalosaurus, Stygimoloch and Dracorex the same dinosaur.
It is likely that these three dinosaurs were in fact all the same, just at different ages. Dracorex being the youngest with no dome hard head but spiky nobs, Stygimoloch being the middle age with a smaller dome hard head and some spikes and then the adult being Pachycephalosaurus with its 10 inch thick dome.
They all loved in the same area at the same time, and it is less likely that three very similar species would be able to do that well if they all competed for the same food.
However, even though this is fairly well accepted there are still plenty of scientists who say that these are three different dinosaurs. For the sake of Harry Potter fans and the Dracorex hogwartsia we hope they are right!
17: Is Pachycephalosaurus the longest dinosaur name?
Pachycephalosaurus is almost the longest dinosaur name. It certainly has a name as hard to say as its hard head. However he longest name for a dinosaur is related to it! The long name was a small pachycephalosaurus called, can you guess, Micropachycephalosaurus. tha had 9 syllables and 23 letters!!
it may at some point turn out to be another growth stage of the adult pachycephalosaurus as it seems so many others were!
18: Did the Pachycephalosaurus lay eggs?
It is thought that most dinosaurs were Egg laying, though we can not say 100% for sure. However pachycephalosaurus is very likely to have been a dinosaur that did reproduce by laying eggs.
19: When was Pachycephalosaurus discovered?
pachycephalosaurus has been found for over 150 years, but as we mentioned above those first fossils were mistaken for kneecaps of other dinosaurs. It wasn’t until 1943 that i was named though.
20: What dinosaurs did Pachycephalosaurus live with?
Pachycephalosaurus has been found in the Hells Creek Formation, which has seen a lot of fossil discoveries. Other dinosaurs found there have included, Triceratops, Quetzalcoatlus, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Ankylosaurus and Struthiomimus
21: What Did Pachycephalosaurus use its hard head for?
Although studies initially found that the heads of Pachycephalosaurus may have been quite brittle. At least brittle enough to not be used to much hitting heads with anothe rhard headed dinosaur. More recent studies of over 100 skulls of pachycephalosaurus foudn that over 2-% of them had damage.
this is way more than expected, and does heavily suggest that those 10 inch dome heads were not just for show but could pack a punch as well. We never doubted it!
22: Where has Pachycephalosaurus been found?
There have been many fossils of pachycephalosaurus fossils found in North America and Canada.
23: When did Pachycephalosaurus live?
Pachycephalosaurus lived during the late cretaceous period between 70 and 66 million years ago. In what is now the western United States.
24: When was Pachycephalosaurus named?
Although pachycephalosaurus fossil had been found for alomst 90 years before it was not officially named until 1943, when Barnum Brown and Erich Maren Schlaikjer, gave it the name Pachycephalosaurus.
25: Did Pachycephalosaurus have teeth.
It did have small teeth and for over 100 years these teeth were though to be those of a herbivore. It was beaked liek triceratops, and had back teeth suited to strip leaves from bushes and plants. however in recent years front teeth have been discovered, as we mention above.
These teeth are long and sharp and more suited to a carnivores mouth rather than a herbivores. So it may be that some re thinking needs to be done about what this hard headed dinosaur actually ate!
Conclusion
We feel that for this hard headed dinosaur we may have left you with more questions than answers! Did it use its head to fight, what were those sharp teeth for? was dracorex and stygimoloch just younger versions of the same dinosaur?
However this is the nature of learning about dinosaurs, there is always new information coming up all the time.
Hopefully you have still learnt some new pachycephalosaurus facts from our list above. Don’t forget to check out the rest of our dinosaur facts pages, our coloring and facts sheets are also free to downloads. We have new content added all the time, so just like you were are always learning more dinosaur facts all the time.
references
https://easyscienceforkids.com/parasaurolophus/
https://kids.britannica.com/kids/article/Pachycephalosaurus/390077
Hi, I am Roy Ford a General Studies and English Teacher who has taught all over the world. What started as a fossil collection became a great way to teach, motivate and inspire students of all ages and all over the world about dinosaurs and from that and children’s love of dinosaurs came the site dinosaur facts for kids, a resource for all ages.
