Stratum.black
Psittacosaurus — Psittacosaurus
Psittacosaurus — Rauantiques, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY SA 4.0

Dinosaur

Psittacosaurus

Parrot lizard

Psittacosaurus is the small beaked ceratopsian of the Early Cretaceous of China and Mongolia, known from hundreds of skeletons, one with preserved skin and bristles. Skeletons exported from China in the 1990s–2000s are now the subject of seizures and repatriation; Mongolian material is state property and its export is illegal. Stratum treats Psittacosaurus as export-banned provenance.

PhylumChordata
ClassReptilia
OrderOrnithischia
FamilyPsittacosauridae
GroupDinosaur
Rank (PBDB)genus· Paleobiology Database
AuthorOsborn 1923· Paleobiology Database
Classification (PBDB)Chordata › Ornithischia › NO_ORDER_SPECIFIED › NO_FAMILY_SPECIFIED· Paleobiology Database
Range (PBDB)137–100 Ma· Paleobiology Database
PBDB occurrences70· Paleobiology Database

Photographs

Psittacosaurus — Psittacosaurus sinensis Young, 1958, REFERRED (NHMUK PV R 9392)
Psittacosaurus sinensis Young, 1958, REFERRED (NHMUK PV R 9392) — © The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London, Natural History Museum (London) Data Portal, CC BY 4.0

Age

Formations

Elsewhere

Cite this article

Stratum Study. "Psittacosaurus" (Taxon). Stratum Study pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-19. https://stratum.black/study/taxa/psittacosaurus. Accessed 2026-09-20.

BibTeX · CSL-JSON

@misc{stratum-psittacosaurus,
  title        = {Psittacosaurus},
  author       = {{Stratum Study}},
  howpublished = {\url{https://stratum.black/study/taxa/psittacosaurus}},
  year         = {2026},
  note         = {Taxon article, Stratum Study pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-19; sources: stratum, pbdb, wikidata, commons, nhm. Accessed 2026-09-20.}
}

Citations carry the pack version and the article's as-of date so they resolve to the same text later. The facts themselves belong to the sources listed below; cite those for the science.