Cerasinops was named and described by Brenda Chinnery and Jack Horner in 2007 from a specimen (MOR 300) almost 80% complete. Cerasinops belonged to the Ceratopsia (the name is Ancient Greek for 'horned face'), a group of herbivorous dinosaurs with parrot-like beaks that thrived in North America and Asia during the Cretaceous Period. Within this group, it has been placed as a basal member of Neoceratopia, although the description is variable; at one point, it is explicitly assigned to Leptoceratopsidae, but in others, it is considered a sister taxon to Leptoceratopsidae, or as a neoceratopsian in general.[1]