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Triceratops over the centuries

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Since ceratopids were known from roughly complete, articulated skeletons early on, the basic shape and form did not change as dramatically as in some other dinosaur groups. The uppermost drawing shows the classic “trike” as we knew it from C.R. Knight until the 1980s. It has a heavy, tired-looking body with the head in a lowered position and a dragged tail. Its back is covered with scutes, often spiky, as is the edge of the frill (as the bones indicate). Its mouth is covered by slim “lips” all the way down to the end of the jaw. The jugal process is sticking out sharply and often has a keratinous sheath. The throat often has a kind of dewlap and the legs are elephantine and more or less sprawled.

The drawing in the middle shows the Triceratops from the 1980s to the end of the 2000s. The ceratopians are now as erected and dynamic as anatomically possible, and also the forelimbs are often fully parasagittal stretched. Their skulls have cheeks now, the jugal still is a pseudo-horn. Also ceratopians had the typical shrink-wrapping syndrome of that time, with visible shoulder blades, skinny tails and necks and as few tissue as possible. Their back still has some scutes, but smaller ones. The legs are now less elephantine but muscular, with well-pronounced toes and nails. From that time on it is considered likely that the frill primarily evolved for display, so they are often brightly coloured.

This is still the case in the modern view Triceratops at the bottom. The presence of the muscle groups at the shoulder, tail and neck area should be appreciated now. The forelegs are not fully pronated as in the previous version, and actually manual digit four and five probably barely touched the ground, and they had no claws since no archosaur had claws there. There is controversy if the jaws of ornithischians would have been covered in cheeks, lips or something else. The jugal process was not a pseudo-horn but rather the base of musculature, and therefore did not stick out that much as in previous illustrations. The nostril was most likely situated at the anterior end of the nasal opening instead of the middle, which was recognized already in 2004. The integument of ceratopians and Triceratops in particular is well-known today. Apart from large, rectangular scales that covered the ventral side of the body, the impressions of the scutes on the dorsal side of the body show a kind of “nipple” with a broken tip, which may have been the base for keratinous spines/filaments. Some illustrate them as rather long spines, a bit similar to a porcupine. I myself drew them only a several inches long, therefore assume they were shorter but that’s open to interpretation (just fyi: my drawing does not show only a single line along the back, actually each scute has its spine, but it is not very well visible on this small version).

My next works of the historical series will include mosasaurs, perhaps hadrosaurs and others. 

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sstanford2's avatar

From top to bottom, is it the oldest restoration to the current, or vice versa?