Dracorex

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 years 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.