Dinosaur Spotlight- Presenting Triceratops or 3 Horned Face

Izvor: KiWi

If you could trek back in time on the way to the continent of North America at some stage in the Late Cretaceous time period, some ninety seven to 65 million years ago, one very common dinosaur you would have encountered would have been the Triceratops (say Try-serra-tops). Thankfully this dinosaur fed on plants only so you probably would have been quite safe as long as you kept your distance.

This is not to say that Triceratops was not an impressive beast. With an estimated shoulder height of 3 meters (10 feet) tall, a body length of nearly 10 meters (33 feet) and weighing up to 10 metric tons (10 tons) it was similar in mass to a normal sized elephant. So you really would not like to make old "three-horned face" cross enough to charge you. Oh yes, I neglected to bring up the three horns!

If the mass of Triceratops alone wasn't enough to frighten you, then think about its horns. A single smaller horn on the nose and the two horns, one over each eye, which measured more than 1 meter (three feet long). More than adequate to make you feel like a marsh-mellow on a roasting stick if Triceratops ever was able to impale you!

Yet one more impressive characteristic of Triceratops was its large armored neck frill which was spiked and utilized for protection. Triceratops also had a hooked beak which was useful for consuming smaller plants such as ferns and little palm trees. The Triceratops belonged to a collection of dinosaurs called ceratopsians which means "the horn-headed dinosaurs" and were one of the very last types of dinosaurs to evolve.

If you enjoyed this article about Triceratops and would like to meet more huge plant-eating dinosaurs simply click here or visit The Dino Detective Website.