Triceratops

Common name: Triceratops (Try-ser-uh-tops) Size: 7.9 to 9.0 m (26.0–29.5 ft) in length Age: End of Cretaceous (67 - 65 million years ago) Geographic range: North America Liked: Grazing Disliked: the T-Rex Taxonomy: Animalia > Chordata > Dinosauria > Ornithiscia > Ceratopsidae > Triceratops

Three horns and a bony neck frill make the Triceratops one of the most recognized dinosaurs. The name Triceratops is Greek in origin and literally means three horns on face. This elephant-sized dino roamed around North America near the end of the Cretaceous Period, approximately 67 to 65 million years ago.

Triceratops was an herbivore, eating mostly plants, and shrubs. Past studies have shown Triceratops used its parrot-like beak to grasp and pluck leaves rather than biting them off, and could have used both its horns and its massive body to tip over tall plants. Triceratops' mouth was packed with up to 800 teeth that were constantly being replenished over its lifetime. Man that's a lot of teeth!

The very first Triceratops bones were discovered in Denver in the year 1887. The bones were sent to Othniel Charles Marsh, who first thought they might belong to a bison. It wasn't until the following year, in 1888, that he named the creature Triceratops after subsequent bones were unearthed. To date, over 50 individual skulls have been dug up, but not one single, complete skeleton.

Only partial skeletons and skulls -- including infant dinos -- have been found across Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, Colorado, Wyoming and parts of Canada. This shows Triceratops was confined to North America, which makes sense as the present day North American continent had already split and drifted away from Europe and South America by the time the three-horns came along.

They have been traditionally characterized as herding animals, although that is still up for debate. Up until 2009, unearthed Tricertops fossils have always been of solitary animals. In 2009, a bonebed was discovered containing three juvenile specimens, indicating they made be herd animals after all.

The dinosaur was equipped with strong limbs to support its massive body. Its forelimbs, which were shorter than the rear ones, were believed to allow the dinosaur to walk upright like an elephant, rather than bowed-out like a lizard.

Triceratops had one of the largest heads of all land animals, some even spanning one-third of the dinosaur's body. The largest skull ever dug up measured 8.2 feet (2.5 meters) in length. The largest specimen ever found spanned over 30 feet (9 meters) and weighed in at a whopping 15,750 pounds (7150 kg).

The bony neck frill, officially called a flounce, acted as more than just body armor to the Triceratops. Although the main use was for defense -- against other Triceratops and predators like the T-Rex -- studies show the frill was also used as a visual display in activities such as mating, and communication. It has even been suggested to help regulate body temperature.

Fun fact: The Triceratops is the state dinosaur of Wyoming.

-ALT

Image Credit: The Smithsonian

Source: http://bit.ly/1FU7t9V http://bit.ly/1ctt2CV http://bit.ly/1JuUt9W http://bit.ly/1ctt2CV http://bit.ly/1H56VQd

Pygmy Mammoths, Cyclops and Greek Mythology

Many people have heard the tales of the terrible Cyclops; giants with a single eye that had a nasty tendency to kill, and sometimes eat, unsuspecting adventurers. However, conjuring up such fearsome beasts may not have been purely a feat of imagination; their origins may have been based on fact.

This story begins with the Mediterranean Islands during the Pleistocene, when low sea levels allowed land bridges to be exposed and for fauna to cross between land masses. Both elephants and mammoths roamed the Mediterranean with several species living side by side. However, at the end of the Ice Age, melting ice led to a sudden sea level rise, destroying any land bridges and isolating any individuals unfortunate to find themselves stuck on the island.

A lack of food led to an evolution bias in the elephant (Sardinia is the only island to have Mammoths) populations, with smaller individuals more successful as they required less food to survive. Over several generations this led to elephants/mammoths that could be as small as 1m at the shoulder.

So how do the cyclops come into this? Well, when the animals died they were stripped of all their soft tissue, but parts of their skeleton were preserved. The trunk of an elephant contains no bones and therefore is rarely found. This leaves the skull looking like the image below. Which oddly enough looks just like a huge skull with a single eye socket, especially if the specimen in question had lost its tusks.

Greeks coming to the island subsequently found these preserved skulls, often separated from any other bones or remains, and hypothesised to what they could be. They came to the conclusion these skulls had belonged to giant men with a single eye in the centre of their forehead and the myth of the cyclops was born.

Image Credit: Darren Copley

Reference: http://bit.ly/1PaBTr7

Further Reading: http://bit.ly/1DbTqHE