Protoceratops

Were the beak and clawed legs of Protoceratops fossil remains the origin of the lion bodied, eagle headed griffin of Greek legend? We know now that Protoceratops was an early type of horned dinosaur related to Triceratops. These herbivores would have been about the size of sheep and may have roamed in herds, devouring the vegetation of the time. Certainly, the finding of fossilised remains of many individuals in one place suggested herd behaviour. One of the two recognised finds of Protoceratops fossils was infamous for having a velociraptor skeleton wrapped around it as if locked in battle.

Appearance
Protoceratops is one of those dinosaurs that people think was a lot bigger than it actually was: today, it's often mistakenly pictured as a giant, but this horned dinosaur was only about three feet high (in its quadrupedal stance) and weighed in the neighborhood of 400 pounds--meaning Hulk Hogan might have been able to wrestle one to the ground. It's believed that large herds of these pig-sized ceratopsians roamed the plains and woodlands of late Cretaceous Asia, where they were preyed on by hungry tyrannosaurs and raptors. (See also 10 Facts About Protoceratops.)

Behaviour
As tiny as it was compared to later herbivorous dinosaurs, Protoceratops lay near the trunk of a mighty dinosaur evolutionary tree, giving rise to the giant ceratopsians of the late Cretaceous period--including such famous and familiar dinosaurs as Triceratops, Centrosaurus and Styracosaurus. However, Protoceratops wasn't the most "basal" ceratopsian; that honor probably belongs to the much earlier Psittacosaurus, if not an even earlier genus.

Protoceratops has earned a place in the paleontology hall of fame for a rare fossil find: the tangled skeletons of a Protoceratops and a Velociraptor, who were presumably in mid-fight when they were both buried together by a sudden sandstorm. (See this article for an analysis of who might have won a one-on-one battle between Protoceratops and Velociraptor.)

In Chased By Dinosaurs
Nigel Marven searches the early Mongolia deserts and forests for Therizinosaurus, who has massive and very long claws. Nigel's tent is immediately trampled by a Saurolophus, but he still goes off for his adventure. Nigel passes through a Protoceratops nesting site, and deliberately provoked them to charge at some red cloth tied on a large stick, as so to allow him and his crew to pass through the herd safely. The Protoceratops are the smaller herbivores in this episode, with the larger being the Hadrosaurs Saurolophus.

Trivia

 * In 1922, the famous paleontologist Roy Chapman Andrews, of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, led a fossil-hunting expedition to Mongolia. The trip was a success: not only did Andrews' unearth the petrified remains of Protoceratops, but also of Velociraptor, Oviraptor and another ceratopsian, Psittacosaurus (about which more below).
 * At the same time as he discovered Protoceratops, Andrews also discovered what he presumed to be Protoceratops eggs. Later, he found the skeleton of a small theropod dinosaur crouched over these eggs, and dubbed it Oviraptor ("egg thief"). Guess what? It turns out that those "Protoceratops" eggs actually belonged to Oviraptor, which is still saddled with its unfair name.
 * Protoceratops is one of the few dinosaurs to show evidence of sexual dimorphism, that is, differences in size and anatomy between males and females. Some paleontologists believe male Protoceratops had larger, more elaborate frills, which they used to impress females, but not everyone is convinced by the evidence.
 * The most intimidating parts of the otherwise gentle Protoceratops were its teeth, beak and jaws, which this dinosaur used to clip, tear and chew the tough vegetation of its central Asian habitat. To accommodate this equipment, the skull of Protoceratops was almost comically large compared to the rest of its body, giving it a distinctly "top-heavy" appearance.