Dinosaur Drama
Tragic news in the dinosaur field: the dinosaur we know as triceratops may have never existed:
This extreme shape-shifting was possible because the bone tissue in the frill and horns stayed immature, spongy and riddled with blood vessels, never fully hardening into solid bone as happens in most animals during early adulthood. The only modern animal known to do anything similar is the cassowary, descended from the dinosaurs, which develops a large spongy crest when its skull is about 80 per cent fully grown.
Scannella and Horner examined 29 triceratops skulls and nine torosaurus skulls, mostly from the late-Cretaceous Hell Creek formation in Montana. The triceratops skulls were between 0.5 and 2 metres long. By counting growth lines in the bones, not unlike tree rings, they have shown clearly that the skulls come from animals of different ages, from juveniles to young adults. Torosaurus fossils are much rarer, 2 to 3 metres long and, crucially, only adult specimens have ever been found. The duo say there is a clear transition from triceratops into torosaurus as the animals grow older. For example, the oldest specimens of triceratops show a marked thinning of the bone where torosaurus has holes, suggesting they are in the process of becoming fenestrated.
I’m sorry, but I find this news completely unacceptable. First, look at a picture of a torosaurus. It looks like a giant fat armadillo with an oblong shield on its head. The torosaurus looks weak and uninterested, like a dinosaur that is constantly being bullied for its lunch money and is always picked last for dinosaur dodgeball.
Now look at a picture of a triceratops. The triceratops, with its long horns and protective armor, looks like a tank with legs. When I was a kid, the triceratops was always considered to be the second most bad-ass dinosaur around, and was the only dinosaur that could give the T-Rex a run for its money, even if it was a herbivore and thus had no real reason to fight the T-Rex.
Now I’m supposed to believe that the triceratops is merely the teenage version of this fat mush mess called the torosaurus? I don’t think so.
Granted, no human being has ever seen a real triceratops. It’s possible, probable even, that our image of the triceratops comes from artist renditions, not from any solid facts. The skulls found by archaeologists, which are definitely cooler than that of any other dinosaur skull, may have expanded the legend of the triceratops well beyond its actual role in the dinosaur kingdom. After all, archaeologists have known for years that the triceratops was a mostly docile animal who ate plants. There have even been recent findings from archaeologists that suggest that the triceratops’ shield was not used for defense, but for display and courtship, not unlike a cast member of Jersey Shore wearing a Christian Audigier t-shirt.
But I’m still not buying it. I am laughing in the face of scientists who know far more than I ever will about this subject. Much like Jon Heyman and Bert Blyleven, scientific evidence beyond any shadow of a doubt does not sway me even a little bit. As far as I’m concerned, the triceratops used his horns and shield to wreak wonton havoc across the Pangaea, and certainly was no relation to the sluggish, disinterested torosaurus. I’d rather go Carl Everett on this subject and not believe in dinosaurs at all than believe anything less.
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