triceratops

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Biggest Triceratops Fossil Sells for Far More Than Expected

(Newser) - Update: The biggest triceratops skeleton ever found has sold for more than four times the expected price—and as paleontologists feared, the buyer wasn't a museum. The Drouot auction house says the fossil, known as "Big John," was bought for $7.7 million by a private collector...

Study Reveals Why Some Dinosaurs Had Horns

Hint: It's the same reason peacocks have such impressive tail feathers

(Newser) - The horns and frills of dinosaurs like Triceratops and Styracosaurus weren't for defending against predators, regulating body temperature, or even attaching fearsome battle helmets , according to a study published this week in Proceedings of the Royal Society B . Rather researchers found the defining features of ceratopsian dinosaurs were actually...

N. America's Oldest Horned Dino Was Size of Bunny

Triceratops relative from early Cretaceous period also picky eater: scientists

(Newser) - When paleontologists on a National Geographic Society expedition dug up a 100-million-year-plus sample sticking out of the dirt in Montana in 1997, they initially thought it was a rock—until they saw it had teeth. Now, 17 years later, they've finally gotten around to naming and describing the creature,...

Triceratops Horns Were 1M Years in Making

Large nasal horn they are so famous for wasn't always so big

(Newser) - The rhino-like Triceratops, Greek for "three-horned face," didn't always embody its name in way we picture it doing. By comparing 50 skulls collected over a 15-year period from the Hell Creek Formation in Montana, paleontologists have learned that it took between 1 million and 2 million years...

Dino Grew 'Wings'— on Its Head

Mercuriceratops gemini used protrusions to attract mates

(Newser) - If you thought the " Pinocchio Rex " looked a bit odd, get a load of this dinosaur: Scientists have discovered a Triceratops relative, the smaller Mercuriceratops gemini, which sported bony "wings" on either side of its head. The fact that fossil fragments showing butterfly-like protrusions from the skull...

Utah's 'Lost World' Yields 15-Horned Dino

Kosmoceratops resembled oversized rhino

(Newser) - A pair of dinosaur species discovered in Utah rank among the horniest beasts ever to walk the Earth, researchers say. One, Kosmoceratops, had 15 full-sized horns on its head, which was roughly 6.5 feet long. Researchers believe the impressive display helped the dinosaur compete for mates, much like peacock...

Triceratops Never Existed
Triceratops 'Never Existed'
Aug 3, 2010 9:42 AM CDT

Triceratops 'Never Existed'

Three-horned fossils are actually juvenile torosauruses

(Newser) - One of the best-known dinosaur species may not have really been a dinosaur species at all, according to new research. Scientists compared triceratops skulls to those of a lesser-known species, the torosaurus, and concluded that the triceratops were actually young torosauruses, New Scientist reports. They believe the three-horned dinosaur's skull...

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