Triceratops - "Three Horned Face"

Triceratops


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Name Meaning: Three Horned Face
Diet: Herbivore
Size: Up to T-Rex's hip.
Time: Late Cretaceous (84 - 80 million years ago)





Appearance

Individual Triceratopes are estimated to have reached about 7.9 to 9.0 m (26.0–29.5 ft) in length, 2.9 to 3.0 m (9.5–9.8 ft) in height, and 6.1–12.0 tonnes (13,000–26,000 lb) in weight. The most distinctive feature is their large skull, among the largest of all land animals. The largest known skull is estimated to have been 2.5 metres (8.2 ft) in length when complete, and could reach almost a third of the length of the entire animal. It bore a single horn on the snout, above the nostrils, and a pair of horns approximately 1 m (3.3 ft) long, with one above each eye. To the rear of the skull was a relatively short, bony frill, adorned with epoccipitals in some specimens. Most other ceratopsids had large fenestrae in their frills, while those of Triceratops were noticeably solid.

Triceratops species possessed a sturdy build, with strong limbs, short hands with three hooves each, and short feet with four hooves each. Although certainly quadrupedal, the posture of these dinosaurs has long been the subject of some debate. Originally, it was believed that the front legs of the animal had to be sprawling at angles from the thorax, in order to better bear the weight of the head. Ichnological evidence in the form of track ways from horned dinosaurs, and recent reconstructions of skeletons in both physical and digital, seem to show that Triceratops and other ceratopsids maintained an upright stance during normal locomotion, with the elbows flexed and slightly bowed out, in an intermediate state between fully upright and fully sprawling just like in the modern rhinoceros.







Behaviour

Although Triceratops are commonly portrayed as herding animals, there is currently little evidence that they lived in herds. For many years, Triceratops finds were known only from solitary individuals. Triceratops were herbivorous, and because of their low head, their primary food was probably low growth, although they may have been able to knock down taller plants with their horns, beak, and bulk. The jaws were tipped with a deep, narrow beak, believed to have been better at grasping and plucking than biting. Triceratops were long thought to have possibly used their horns and frills in combat with predators such as Tyrannosaurus. There is evidence that Tyrannosaurus did have aggressive head-on encounters with Triceratops, based on partially healed tyrannosaur tooth marks on a Triceratops brow horn and squamosal; the bitten horn is also broken, with new bone growth after the break. In addition to combat with predators using horns, Triceratops are classically shown engaging each other in combat with horns locked.





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