Your thoughts on triceratops?

Everyone knows that it was recently theorized that triceratops is probably not a distinct species of dinosaur, but in fact a young version of the torosaurus. There has only been one paper published on this so far, so it's nothing set in stone (much like the species homo floresiensis).

I'm just curious as to whether you believe in this new theory or not.

I do. I've known for a long time now that dinosaur skulls often transformed shape over growth, so this doesn't surprise me.

I find the reconstruction of prehistoric creatures to be guesswork in itself mostly. I wasn't able to see proper photographic lay outs on the story I read so I'm not convinced either way.

Cera was cute, I like her, lets keep her.

Originally posted by Seiko
I find the reconstruction of prehistoric creatures to be guesswork in itself mostly. I wasn't able to see proper photographic lay outs on the story I read so I'm not convinced either way.

Cera was cute, I like her, lets keep her.

Funny, I've seen more The Land Before Time references in the past few days than I've seen since I was 5 and watched the films.

Triceratops were my favorite dinasours since I was a little boy and for this reason, I have a bias. Now I know how Pluto lovers feel, though unlike many of the Pluto stalwarts, I won't allow my own personal bias to skew the data.

I don't think there is nearly enough evidence or even strong enough evidence to conclude that the two dinasours were one in the same, however they do make a compelling argument. As for whether I believe it or not, I'll wait until more fossil evidence is found, if it ever is found in the first place. As another poster said, I too think that much of the "science" behind paleontology is guess-work and we are trying to get a big picture through the relatively small number of dinasour bones and fossils that have been preserved. With that being said, I think that paleontologists have done some excellent work to accomplish what they have with so little to go on. So, I'll wait for either a rebuttal or more conclusive evidence before forming my opinion of whether to agree with it or not.

--airspoon

well looks like the same dino to me but if we have to pick one name i say triceratops is what they should be called .
and to say they could kill us is dumb.
as like a rhino they will ignore you unless they feal you are a threat.
so don't drive up to one in a jeep as the jeep is big enough for them to think humm maybe i should turn this into splat .
people should know better then to harras these very large animals

Originally posted by airspoon
Triceratops were my favorite dinasours since I was a little boy and for this reason, I have a bias. Now I know how Pluto lovers feel, though unlike many of the Pluto stalwarts, I won't allow my own personal bias to skew the data.

The good news is torosaurus was reclassified as triceratops. so triceratops was not "plutoed".

HAha I have to agree with many of the other posters who say that triceratops was there fav dino, wish it had more of a part in Jurassic park

The problem is that all we know about dinosaurs comes from old piles of bones buried under the ground, kids toys and cartoons.


It's all guess work and conjecture.


The only real way to find out will be to clone some of those suckers and make a real Jurassic Park so we can study them and find out what they were really like.


Only this time, I hope they eat Jeff Goldblum. That man is just to annoying for words...

Here is a related thread on this....

Horner was on Fox yesterday talkng about how he believes the Triceratops "shapeshifted" as it got older. So a young one had a different shapped head than a middle aged one and an old one even had a different shape. Basically as it grew it changed shape.

Interesting stuff. I believe this theory/finding.

My father is very deep in the world of paleontology and knows Scannella and Horner....so ive grown up around all this dino stuff

[edit on August 5th 2010 by greeneyedleo]

Horner's really gotten into the age morphology thing in dinosaurs. I haven't chatted up my paleontologists to see what the rest of them think of this. He is quite a maverick, but some of his theories have been later proven true.

His latest ones about juvenile forms being misnamed are interesting. I wasn't quite as convinced with the first one (Stygimoloch) since Horner's concept was based on the examination of the only known skull of Dracorex. I don't see the mechanism that would change the direction of the horns of Triceratops without shedding them and regrowing them. They were permanent structures; not shed and grown annually.