Troll_Man
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WWD: Triceratops prorsus
🕑 Added 2023-08-16 06:06:47 +0000 UTCOne of the most famous dinosaur genera and extremely successful and widespread during the Mid to Late Maastrichtian across Laramidia. This was possibly the very largest ceratopsian species, reaching up to nine metres in length and over ten metric tonnes. Every stage of life is known, from near-hatchlings to gigantic old adults, with skulls 3 metres long. This was the eternal rival supreme to Tyrannosaurus rex, huge tooth scars mar numerous Triceratops bones which show tantalizing hints of the titanic battles which must've occurred again and again between the ultimate predator and the ultimate prey (nearly 1/5th of Triceratops body fossils have evidence of predation/consumption by T. rex!).
But in this case, WWD decided we need not be privy to this nigh-legendary hunt, it happened offscreen unceremoniously. So the animal that makes up about 40% of all dinosaur fossils from Hell Creek, and actually is known to have done battle with Tyrannosaurus, appears for about 40 seconds total as a gnawed corpse. Great.
I used what colours and patterns that could be determined from the low-quality footage of the carcass, which has stripes surprisingly, but they're exaggerated here to prevent it from being another featureless brownish-grey hide animal. Skin impressions are known from Triceratops which show that, unlike most other large dinosaurs, the scales covering them were quite large and would have been clearly visible from a distance, some of them were several inches in diameter and had a nipple shape, with a small pointed protrusion at the centre, giving the animal a rough, prickly appearance. Skin impressions are also known from the face, indicating the frill was also covered in scales.
The most well-known Triceratops species is T. horridus, which is directly ancestral to T. prorsus. (although at the time of WWD's production, it was considered that the two were female-male of the same species, which contributed to the sexual dimorphism of Torosaurus, until it was realized they were not found in the same rock layers) The two are almost identical, differing primarily in size (T. prorsus being slightly larger) and features of the face, namely the nose horn being bigger, the brow horns being smaller, and the frill being shorter in T. prorsus.
Comments
The epoccipitals were present in adults but were duller and more rounded. In juveniles they were much longer and spiker.
Yeah, when there's a single line of evolutionary descent, it's called a chronospecies. Triceratops is one of the few examples where it can be seen in non-avian dinosaurs, it's more well documented in recent species.
Gage Webber
Did Triceratops still have the little frill spikes in adulthood? I may be remembering wrong but I vaguely remember that trikes had smooth frills as adults.
Cartoon dinosaur
the ultimate prey indeed. was this an example of when a species evolves into another but not becoming multiple different ones? (I can't find the name for it) Because I remember a video mentioning that in dinosaur fossils and I think they used a ceratopsian as an example. although I cant remember if it was THEE triceratops.
