Meet Horridus, one of the most complete Triceratops fossils ever found
A massive one triceratops who died 67 million years ago left a nearly complete skeleton that is among the most intact ever found. Nicknamed “Horridus” after the species name (Triceratops Horridus), the fossil, which is approximately 85% complete, made its public debut on March 12 at the Melbourne Museum in Australia in the new exhibition “Triceratops: Fate of the Dinosaurs“, Representative said in a statement.
Horridus was a herbivore or herbivores dinosaurwho lived during the Cretaceous (about 145 to 66 million years ago) and grew to an impressive size. The fossil contains more than 260 bones and weighs more than 2,200 pounds (1,000 kilograms). It is almost 7 m long and over 2 m high.
The skull, which is 98% complete, has two narrow horns on the forehead and a short horn on the nose. The ruff is 1.5 m long and the skull weighs about 261 kg. The fossil was discovered on private land in Montana in 2014, and Museums Victoria – the Australian organization that runs three state museums in Melbourne – acquired the specimen in 2020, the museum announced in December of the same year.
Related: Tiny & Old: Pictures of ‘Triceratops’ Ancestors
When Horridus arrived in Melbourne it was in pieces in eight boxes – some of which were car-sized, museum officials said. Fossil taxidermists measured, labeled and 3D scanned each bone before assembling the skeleton for display. While many articulated triceratops Skeletons are exhibited around the world, only Horridus and a handful of others are made from bones derived from a single animal, said Erich Fitzgerald, senior curator of vertebrate paleontology at Museum Victoria in Australia.
“This is that Rosetta Stone for understanding triceratopsFitzgerald said in the 2020 statement. “This fossil is made up of hundreds of bones, including a complete skull and the entire spine, which will help us unravel mysteries about how this species lived 67 million years ago,” said he.
In the exhibition, Horridus stands in a chamber whose bones are illuminated by projections. Scientists can’t say for sure if Horridus was male or female, but there’s a lot researchers can learn from his nearly complete skeleton triceratops Evolution, biology and behavior, Fitzgerald said in the statement.
“Permanent housing in the Melbourne Museum means that this remarkable fossil of science will be accessible for generations to come,” he said.
You can see Horridus in person at the Melbourne Museumbut if that’s too far away, you can still examine the giant dinosaur’s bones with an interactive 3D digital model on the museum’s website.
Originally published on Live Science.
https://www.livescience.com/horridus-triceratops-display-melbourne-museum Meet Horridus, one of the most complete Triceratops fossils ever found
