Triceratops

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I’ll be referring to Triceratops Horridus for this. T. Horridus had a smaller nose horn and shallower snout; but its brow horns had an upwards curve; while T. Prorsus had a longer nasal horn, shorter snout, and its horns were pointed more upright, T. prorsus is also found in younger formations. Triceratops was 10 feet tall and between 26 to 30 feet long its head would have been 1.6 meters tall and weighed a ton alone. Its brow horns grew to over a meter long with an upwards curve to them and kept growing as they aged. Triceratops had the largest scales of any known dinosaur with poligonal scales around the hide and larger circular ones around the flanks with some “nipple like” bumps on some. Some believed that these may have supported quill-like structures like Psitacosaurus tail although it did also have those kinds of scales across the body without quills. There isn’t any known sexual dimorphism in Triceratops numerous attempts have been made to identify common sexually dimorphic traits such as larger horns or frills in males but have been inconclusive. Both males and Females had their large frills and horns for defense against predators and social confrontations. Males likely competed for mates with other males but females could have likely needed these large structures to compete with other Triceratops for food, leadership or to protect their offspring. Triceratops mouth formed a beak from the premaxilla and maxilla which formed a special bone called the rostral bone unique to ceratopsians. In its mouth there were around 72-80 teeth very close together called a tooth battery made for slicing up vegetation like palms, cycads and other low growing vegetation. They were extremely sharp and were very quickly replaced with Triceratops having around 700 teeth growing as reserve replacements. It’s unknown where jaw muscles attachment points were, but certain attachment configurations suggest it had one of the strongest bite forces of any animal. Also other ceratopsians have been known to use their bites as weapons like the Protoceratops in the fighting dinosaurs fossil. Triceratops is the most common dinosaur found throughout all areas of the Hell Creek formation at around 40% of all fossils being atributed to Triceratops. The Hell Creek formation which was mostly riverbanks with floodplains and inland forests it shared some of its environments with other popular and iconic dinosaurs like dinosaurs Tyrannosaurus, Ankylosaurus, Pachycephalosaurus, Edmontosaurus, and Struthiomimus.

Big John is the largest known Triceratops skeleton; he was named after the owner of the ranch in Hell Creek where he was found in May of 2014. Big John’s body was 60% complete and the skull was 75% complete. Big John is around 5-10% larger than other Triceratops and has a hole in the right side squamosal that was from a duel with another Triceratops that partially healed before death. He was auctioned off to the Glazer Children's Museum till 2026 Big John can currently only be seen with child supervision.

Prehistoric Kingdom

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Species Field Guide Triceratops

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