Dracorex hogwartsia may have looked like a fearsome dragon, but it was actually a gentle plant-eating dinosaur. This spiny bone-headed dinosaur was named after Hogwarts, the fictional academy attended by Harry Potter. The fossil remains of this fantastic beast were found in South Dakota, USA. It lived in the Late Cretaceous, 66 million year ago, at the end of the age of the dinosaurs.
History: The spectacular fossil skull of Dracorex was discovered in South Dakota, USA, in 2004. T Robert Bakker, the lead author of the description, gave it a fantastic name: Dracorex means ‘dragon king’, while hogwartsia refers to Hogwarts Academy, the fictional school where Harry Potter trained. Some paleontologists think that Dracorex is really a juvenile of another bone-headed dinosaur, Pachycephalosaurus, from the same time and place.
Scientific Name: Dracorex hogwartsia
Characteristics: Dracorex was a plant-eating dinosaur known only from a fossilised skull and neck. The complete animal may have been up to 3 m long. Its fearsome-looking bony skull was covered in bumps, spikes, and spines, reminiscent of a fictional dragon, as shown on our Dracorex toy. It had a narrow snout and, like other ‘bone-headed dinosaurs’, it probably walked on two long back legs and had short arms with five-fingered hands. Its claws were probably blunt and hoof-like.
Size: This Dracorex toy model is 20 cm long and 7.5 cm high.