I'll be revisiting the Toroceratops theory again soon, because I'm a glutton for punishment. I believe I've found a good way to distinguish Triceratops from Torosaurus without relying on parietal fenestrae, although frill morphology does come into play. I'm just making the text sound good, and make sure my argument is sound before I post the whole thing (it's a whopper). Anyway, here's an illustration of AMNH 1201, simplified from Hatcher (1903). It displays a unique combination of juvenile and adult traits, as do many specimens of Triceratops.
Stay tuned...
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5 comments:
Thats actually USNM 1201. USNM is the Smithsonian.
Been away from the blogshpere a while, but will definitely drop by more often.I am reading through the archived palaeo posts now!
Will you be touching on the histology issue, as well? I thought that was one of the most interesting and compelling parts of the argument put forth by Scanella and Horner, though it's obviously difficult to undertake the same kind of investigation outside of a museum!
Well that second example is just shitty period. But I assure you that there are plenty of skulls that have the proportions of the NatGeo example. Triceratops is quite a polymorphic genus.
I dunno, the NatGeo one's facial area seems a tad too petite IMO, as if it were made for some shitty TV special about dinos that lacks scientific basis. A better example, I believe, would be this beautiful reconstruction by Michael Trcic:
http://www.bhigr.com/store/product.php?productid=360
Regarding the Smithsonian skull, I've heard they recently had to recast a bigger one that was more in proportion to the rest of the fossil. Link below:
http://www.washingtonian.com/articles/businesscareers/1674.html
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