Cartoon of a person holding a microphone and wearing a button-up, jeans, and lace-up shoes.
Text reading "What were you like when you were alive?" inside of a speech bubble.
Text reading "What does Protoceratops mean?" inside of a speech bubble.
Cartoon of a Protoceratops fossil skeleton.
Text reading "How did you become a fossil?" inside of a speech bubble.
Text reading "How did you get to New York City?" inside of a speech bubble.
Text reading "What do you do at the Museum?" inside of a speech bubble.
Text reading "Do you have any secrets to share?" inside of a speech bubble.
Text reading "What Does The Name Protoceratops Mean?" above a colorful oval shape.
A Protoceratops fossil skull with the bump on its nose circled.

DEENA: I have a bone to pick with you...

PROTO ANDY: Ouch!

DEENA: Sorry, just an expression. I'm confused about something. You're a ceratopsian dinosaur, right? Your name means "first horned face." Why don't you have any horns?

PROTO ANDY: Are you blind? Don't you see this glorious bump on my nose? All ceratopsians (seh-rah-TOP-see-inz) have it. Okay, so it's not a big, pointy horn like that ceratopsian superstar, Triceratops . Man, that guy was an overachiever.

A Protoceratops fossil skull with a large bump on the nose.

DEENA: Have you met any other ceratopsian fossils at the museum?

PROTO ANDY: Triceratops and I have a distant ceratopsian relative called Psittacosaurus (sit-TAK-koh-SAW-ris). It was a no-frill dinosaur. It had a curved beak like us - but no frill. That's the name for the bony "thingee" that sticks out of the back of my skull and over my neck.

A Protoceratops fossil skull with its "frill" circled, the bony portion which juts out of the back of the head and over the neck.

DEENA: Is it a thrill to have a frill?

PROTO ANDY: You bet. Paleontologists call it a "display structure." This means that we probably used it to threaten each other by showing off and to recognize other members of our species.

Close-up on the teeth of the fossil skull of a Protoceratops.

DEENA: What did you eat during the late Cretaceous period?

PROTO ANDY: Once again, I've stumped the scientists!

DEENA: That's not fair. Paleontologists have some clues about your diet.

PROTO ANDY: Well, okay. They've made some clever deductions. My teeth suggest that I probably was an herbivore [UR-bah-vore]. You know, a plant-eater. I used my teeth to slice the skin of thick, tough plants - but they don't know what kind I ate because they haven't found any plant fossil evidence near me. So, my diet is still a little secret.

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