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Triceratops
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" In 1971, dinosaur hunters in Mongolia made a stunning find: a specimen of Velociraptor caught in the act of attacking an equally sized Protoceratops. A sudden sandstorm buried these dinosaurs in the middle of their life-and-death struggle, and to judge by the fossil evidence, it's by no means clear that Velociraptor was about to emerge as the victor. ".
From: https://www.thoughtco.com/things-to-know...ps-1093796  *This image is copyright of its original author
Triceratops has very good cranial mobility due to a ball and socket joint: https://planetdi.startlogic.com/dinosaur_anatomy/built_for_defense.htm
" Titanoceratops (meaning "titanic horn face") is a genus of herbivorous ceratopsian dinosaur. It was a giant chasmosaurine ceratopsian that lived during the Late Cretaceous period (late Campanian, 74.7–73.5 Ma, although it could have lived as late as 72.82 Ma) in what is now New Mexico, and the earliest known member of Triceratopsini. It was named in 2011 by Nicholas R. Longrich for a specimen previously thought to belong to Pentaceratops. Titanoceratops was named for its giant skull, and the type species was named T. ouranos, after the father of the Greek titans. "
IMO, when I saw this skeleton, I think the bony shield prolonging their head could serve much more as adornment between males and females than as a really protectiv shield... These bony alveolus had to make the head lighter but not to reinforce it and to really protect the shoulders.
Alright, since my last post here, I've re-examined the Triceratops mass estimate and will redo my post.
As was previously stated, this GDI (link) gives a Triceratops with a 2.5 meter skull and total length of 8.26 meters a mass of about 10.5 tonnes, and I'd in fact argue it would be closer to 11 tonnes given that the parts of the head in red are excluded and that there is very little soft tissue on the legs, tail, and chest, as I did earlier. This would give the largest specimens (UCMP 128561 and AMNH 5040, est 270 and 275 cm skulls respectively) masses of 13.26 and 14 tonnes. But - these mass estimates are still probably undersized at least a little bit. The width of the top view of the hyperlinked GDI is about 3/4 of the length of the skull, which would give us about ~185 cm width for the top view. The thing is, a smaller specimen of Triceratops called Kelsey, at 6-7 meters, is also 185 cm wide in top view (link). Thus, this 8.26 meter Triceratops has the width of a 6-7 meter one and is therefore almost certainly underestimated in terms of mass. If we choose to go by direct scaling from Kelsey, this specimen would have a width of about 235 cm top view, and is probably undersized width wise at 11 tonnes by about 27 percent. As for the largest Triceratops specimens, the same would apply; they are just under 200 cm (199.8) wide directly scaling from the GDI as-is, but this also appears to be an underestimate as scaling from Kelsey would give us about 253 cm for the top view-width of these specimens. Note that this is by no means to be taken as 100% factual or set in stone whatsoever as it is, just like every other mass estimate for every extinct animal, an educated guess. However, it is entirely possible and on the table that the largest specimens of Triceratops could have exceeded 13-14 tonnes quite substantially, and even more average ones would have been a good bit larger than 11 tonnes, significantly more than the 5-6 tonnes commonly quoted in sources such as books and some websites.
Beautiful depiction of Nasutoceratops.
Nasutoceratops lived on Earth at the Late Campanian (included in the Cretaceous), 76 to 75,5 millions years ago. 4m50 long, weighing till 1,5 tonne...
A herd of centrosaurus is crossing a river. Now we can imagine some huge crocodilians hidden unter wasser waiting in ambush or some big predators like the tyrannosaurids Albertosaurus or Dromaeosaurus following the herd and spotting the weakest horned preys.
Replace the extant Masai Mara/Serengeti wildbeests (average weight: 150-200 kilos) with triceratops (average weight: 5-6 tons) and you are able to imagine an important animals migration during the Upper Cretaceous. Triceratops running into water in which some huge crocodilians or other aquatic reptiles were waiting for them to feast. And on the banks some tyrannosaurids marauding and expecting an easy prey (hunted, young or old).
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