Smallest Triceratops skull described
March 6, 2006
An adult Triceratops skull, fully six feet long, dwarfs the foot-long skull of a year-old Triceratops (bottom center). The pair are on display in the Marion Koshland Bioscience and Natural Resources Library in the Valley Life Sciences Building. (Photos by Mark Goodwin, UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology)
A cast of a foot-long skull from the youngest Triceratops dinosaur every discovered is now on display at the University of California-Berkeley.
Despite the pup's size, its remains are telling scientists a lot about how dinosaurs grew, the purpose of their head ornaments and the characteristics of their ancestors.
"The baby Triceratops confirmed our argument that the horns and frill of the skull likely had another function other than sexual display or competition with rivals, which people have often argued, and allows us to propose they were just as important for species recognition and visual communication in these animals," UC-Berkeley paleontologist Mark Goodwin said.
Triceratops horridus was a North American dinosaur, although ceratopsian relatives with different, but equally formidable ornamentation, roamed China and Mongolia during the Cretaceous period, 65 to 144 million years ago. Adult Triceratops could be nearly 10 feet tall and 26 feet long.
The baby's skull -- discovered by amateur fossil hunter Harley Garbani in 1997 in Montana -- is described by Goodwin in the March issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
Copyright 2006 by United Press International
-
Bye bye 'Hogwarts dinosaur'? New analyses of dinosaur growth may wipe out one-third of species
Oct 30, 2009 |
4.6 / 5 (13) |
2
-
Researchers claim a third of dinosaurs might never have existed
Oct 13, 2009 |
4.4 / 5 (21) |
5
-
Engineers build first sub-10-nm carbon nanotube transistor
Feb 01, 2012 |
4.9 / 5 (31) |
30
-
Something old, something new: Evolution and the structural divergence of duplicate genes
Jan 31, 2012 |
4.6 / 5 (7) |
1
-
The hidden nanoworld of ice crystals: Revealing the dynamic behavior of quasi-liquid layers
Jan 30, 2012 |
5 / 5 (3) |
1
-
Stock market network reveals investor clustering
Jan 27, 2012 |
3.9 / 5 (23) |
8
-
Of microchemistry and molecules: Electronic microfluidic device synthesizes biocompatible probes
Jan 26, 2012 |
5 / 5 (1) |
0
More news stories
A frank discussion of the power law and linking correlation to causation
(PhysOrg.com) -- Michael Stumpf a mathematics professor at Imperial College in London, and Mason Porter a lecturer at Oxford have teamed together to write and publish a perspective piece in Science regarding the in ...
Feb 10, 2012 |
5 / 5 (5) |
8
|
US workers are 'giving away the store,' costing firms billions
Nearly 70 percent of the nation's service employees give away free goods and services – from hamburgers to cable TV – costing companies billions of dollars a year, according to a groundbreaking study.
Other Sciences / Economics & Business
Feb 09, 2012 |
3.5 / 5 (4) |
10
New insights into how to correct false knowledge
The abundance of false information available on the Internet, in movies and on TV has created a big challenge for educators.
Other Sciences / Social Sciences
Feb 07, 2012 |
4.9 / 5 (7) |
9
|
Employers feel no love for unscrupulous practice of 'service sweethearting'
A new study led by two Florida State University marketing professors finds that some frontline service employees who are rewarded for hikes in customer loyalty and satisfaction also may engage in "service ...
Other Sciences / Economics & Business
Feb 10, 2012 |
4.5 / 5 (2) |
7
Neanderthal demise due to many influences, including cultural changes: study
As an ice age crept upon them thousands of years ago, Neanderthals and modern human ancestors expanded their territory ranges across Asia and Europe to adapt to the changing environment.
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Feb 07, 2012 |
4.4 / 5 (5) |
8
|
Walney offshore wind farm is world's biggest (for now)
(PhysOrg.com) -- The Walney wind farm on the Irish Sea--characterized by high tides, waves and windy weather--officially opened this week. The farm is treated in the press as a very big deal as the Walney ...
GPS court ruling leaves US phone tracking unclear
A US Supreme Court decision requiring a warrant to place a GPS device on the car of a criminal suspect leaves unresolved the bigger issue of police tracking using mobile phones, legal experts say.
Anonymous briefly knocks CIA website offline (Update 2)
The website of the Central Intelligence Agency was briefly inaccessible on Friday after the hacker group Anonymous claimed to have knocked it offline.
Study finds that anti-diabetic medication can prevent the long-term effects of maternal obesity
In a study to be presented today at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's annual meeting, The Pregnancy Meeting, in Dallas, Texas, researchers will report findings that show that short therapy with the anti-diabetic medication ...
Europe stakes billion-dollar bet on new rocket
A pencil-slim rocket is scheduled to lift into space from South America on Monday, carrying a billion-dollar bet that Europe can grab a juicy slice of the market to place satellites in low orbit.
Europeans protest controversial Internet pact
Tens of thousands of people marched in protests in more than a dozen European cities Saturday against a controversial anti-online piracy pact that critics say could curtail Internet freedom.
