Thescelosaurus wouldn’t have known that its world was about to change drastically. More specifically, that a seven-mile-wide asteroid barreling toward Earth would soon end life as we knew it at the time. The Age of Dinosaurs was about to come to an abrupt end.
Just before the K-T Event, 66 million years ago, Thescelosaurus would have lived alongside Triceratops, Tyrannosaurus rex, and Ankylosaurus in western North America. The species didn’t have many of the dazzling features like horns, a club tail, or a predilection to hunt other big dinosaurs that would have made it memorable.
In fact, its full name, Thescelosaurus neglectus, points to the fact that for many years, the species, which resembled an oversized chicken, was neglected and overlooked by scientists.