Triceratops Facts
- Name: Triceratops (try-serra-tops) means
‘three-horned face’ - Size: up to 9m long and 3m high
- Food: all types of plants
- Lived: 70 – 66 million years ago in the Late Cretaceous in North America
Triceratops was a horned dinosaur. It was as long as two cars and weighed as much as five rhinoceroses. It was a large, powerful dinosaur that had one horn on its nose, which was small and stumpy, and one above each eye, which were up to 1m long.
Triceratops probably used these long horns as weapons. It walked on all fours and had sturdy pillar-like legs. Its front legs were especially strong because they had to support the weight of its extremely heavy head.
Bony Frill
Around Triceratops’ neck was a huge, bony frill which protected its shoulders and could withstand shattering blows from other dinosaurs. Although nobody really knows what colour dinosaurs were, some scientists think that Triceratops’ neck frill was brightly coloured. They believe that Triceratops was so well armed, it didn’t need to be a green or brown colour for camouflage, but had a brightly coloured frill to attract females.
Beaks And Teeth
Triceratops was a herbivore. It nipped off shoots and leaves with its bony parrot-like beak. It ground them up with rows of teeth at the back of its mouth. As the teeth wore down, new ones grew in their place.
Horned Head
On its massive head, Triceratops had three horns: one above each eye and another on the end of its nose. It used the horns to defend itself from hunting dinosaurs, such as Tyrannosaurus rex. It also used the horns to fight other male Triceratops for the females, before mating.
Bruising Battle
The males probably fought each other to become leader of ٥ herd and to attract females. They did not use their horns to wound. Instead, two males shoved and butted each other with their massive heads, locking horns in a bruising battle to prove which was the strongest.
A Triceratops’ neck frill would protect its shoulders and body from a head-on attack by another male. Scientists have found damaged neck frills, which show that these fights between males were fierce enough to cause injuries.
A Fierce Enemy
Even dinosaurs as large as Tyrannosaurus rex would have thought twice about attacking Triceratops, because it could cause serious wounds by stabbing the enemy with its sharp horns.
Triceratops was well protected against attacking dinosaurs: Its bony neck frill was a good defence against sharp teeth and claws and it had tough skin with occasional hard knobs along its back.
Triceratops could charge at its enemies by sprinting at a top speed of 35 km/h. A charge from this rhinoceros-like dinosaur would probably have been enough to scare off many predators.
A charging rhino is very dangerous. Imagine what a charge from giant Triceratops was like.
What Is A Herbivore?
A herbivore is an animal that eats only plants. Herbivores eat many different kinds of plants, from grass to flowers and trees. They eat different parts of plants: leaves, shoots, roots and stalks. Cows are herbivores, so are elephants, rhinoceroses and giraffes. Herbivore’s teeth are different shapes from those of a meat-eating animal. Many dinosaurs were herbivores, including Iguanodon and Stegosaurus.