FERENCERATOPS
a ceratopsian dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of Romania.
Pronunciation:
Meaning: Ferenc's horned face
Author/s: Maidment
et al. (
2026)
Synonyms: None known
First Discovery: Alba County, Romania
Discovery Chart Position: #1188
Ferenceratops shqiperorum
(Ferenc's Albanian Horn Face)Etymology
Ferenceratops is derived from "ferenc" (the birth name of Baron Franz Nopcsa), and the Greek "keras" (horn) and "ops" (face).
The
species epithet,
shqiperorum, refers to Albania, whose endonym—the name a group use for their own country—is Shqipëria. Although often interpreted as meaning "the land of the eagle"—from Albanian "shqipe" (eagle) and the suffix "ëri" (which forms collective or territorial nouns)—the historical root of Shqipëria is older and unrelated to birds. The original sense is closer to "the land of those who speak Albanian", but the modern form was reshaped in the 19th century to echo the eagle, the Albanian national symbol.
Combined, the name is a nod to both Nopcsa's deep personal and political ties to Albania—he was an scholar of Albanian culture and even attempted to become its king—and the fact that he described the holotype back in 1928 as "individual I" in a publication about
Rhabdodon.
Estimations
Timeline:
Era: Mesozoic
Epoch: Late Cretaceous
Stage: Maastrichtian
Age range: 70-68 mya
Stats:
Est. max. length: ?
Est. max. hip height: ?
Est. max. weight: ?
Diet: Herbivore
Ferenceratops
shqiperorum
References
• Weishampel DB, Jianu C-M, Csiki Z and Norman DB (2003) "Osteology and phylogeny of Zalmoxes (n. g.), an unusual euornithopod dinosaur from the latest Cretaceous of Romania".
Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, 1(2): 65-123. DOI: 10.1017/S1477201903001032.
• Osi A, Butler RJ and Weishampel DB (2010) "
A Late Cretaceous ceratopsian dinosaur from Europe with Asian affinities".
Nature, 465(7297): 466-468.
DOI: 10.1038/nature09019. (+supplementary data).
• Susannah CRM, Richard J. Butler, Stephen L. Brusatte, Luke E. Meade, Felix J. Augustin, Zoltán Csiki-Sava & Attila ?si (2025) "A hidden diversity of ceratopsian dinosaurs in Late Cretaceous Europe".
Nature.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09897-w.
Time stands still for no man, and research is ongoing. If you spot an error, or want to expand, edit or add a dinosaur, please use
this form. Go
here to contribute to our FAQ.
All dinos are GM free, and no herbivores were eaten during site construction!
To cite this page:
Atkinson, L.
"
FERENCERATOPS :: from DinoChecker's dinosaur archive".
‹
http://www.dinochecker.com/dinosaurs/FERENCERATOPS›. Web access: 07th Mar 2026.
