Extinct Monsters: A Popular Account of Some of the Larger Forms of Ancient Animal LifeHutchinson, H. N. (Henry Neville)
Science
Extinct Monsters: A Popular Account of Some of the Larger Forms of Ancient Animal Life
Hutchinson, H. N. (Henry Neville)
Paleontology
[28] This skeleton has not yet been set up in the Yale College Museum,
but will be before long. Our artist has drawn it as if set up, with a
man standing by for comparison. In an article in _The Californian
Illustrated Magazine_ for April, 1892 (quoted in the _Review of
Reviews_ for May), an American writer incorrectly describes this
monster as "higher than Jumbo, and longer than two Jumbos placed in a
row." But the article is altogether untrustworthy, and the two
"restorations" are absurd.
[Illustration: Fig. 30.--Skeleton of _Triceratops prorsus_; length
about 25 feet. (After Marsh.)]
In this Dinosaur we find the fore feet larger than usual in proportion
to the hind limbs, and there can be no doubt that it walked on all
fours. Its length was about twenty-five feet. All the vertebræ and
limb-bones are solid. The brain was smaller in proportion to the skull
than in any known vertebrate.
The teeth are remarkable in having two distinct roots. The wedge-like
form of the skull is also very peculiar. The two large horns come
immediately over the eyes, and the small one above the nose; this
Dinosaur was, therefore, well provided with weapons of offence, such
as would be highly useful in driving away or wounding carnivorous
enemies. The back part of the skull rises up into a kind of huge
crest, and this during life was protected by a special fringe of bony
plates. Such an arrangement doubtless formed an effective shield to
ward off blows when one Triceratops was fighting another, as bulls or
buffaloes of the present day fight with their horns. The mouths of
these Dinosaurs formed a kind of beak, sheathed in horn.
The body as well as the skull was protected, but the nature and
position of the defensive parts in different forms cannot yet be
determined with certainty. Various spines, bones, and plates have been
found that evidently were meant for the protection of the creature's
body, and belonged to the skin. Probably some of these were placed on
the back, behind the crest of the skull; some may have defended the
throat, as in Stegosaurus. Altogether, Triceratops is very different
to any other Dinosaur. One cannot help picturing it rather as a fierce
rhinoceros-like animal. In the restoration (Plate XI., Frontispiece)
our artist has given it a thick skin, rather like that of the
rhinoceros, only indicating small bony plates, etc., here and there.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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