Triceratops fossil captured by the Melbourne Museum

“In the 130 years that have passed since the triceratops was first unearthed, there have been perhaps four or five more specimens starting to approach the greatness, completeness and exceptional quality of conservation,” said Erich Fitzgerald, senior curator. of paleontology.

“This one stands out ahead. It will be a canonical example.”

Along with tyrannosaurs and diplodocs, the triceratops is one of the iconic dinosaurs of the ancient world. Yet we know almost nothing about them.

Loading

Only a handful of complete fossils have been unearthed. Most of the fossils in museums are composed of multiple triceratops; some structures have even had to quietly use the bones of other dinosaurs to complete their skeletons.

Melbourne only achieved this thanks to a tip from Dr. Fitzgerald and the museum’s willingness to part with $ 3 million.

“It’s extremely enigmatic, considering it’s one of the most iconic dinosaurs. It’s amazing to me how little we know about this species,” said Hazel Richards, one of the museum’s paleontologists.

We can guess a few things. The creatures were the size – and four times the weight – of a van. They were herbivores, but their beaked mouths suggest they were picky, picking from the tastiest shrubs. They lived lonely lives. And other fossil records from the Montana wilds suggest they were surrounded by predators like tyrannosaurs and its smaller cousins ​​standing hunters.

This probably explains both their enormous size, Richards said, and the effort that evolution has made to keep them safe: a huge skull, a pointed bony frill to protect the neck, and three horns that look lethally sharp, even like fossils.

“The older you are, the harder it is to kill,” said Ms. Richards.

In life, his skull is thought to be covered in hair-like keratin, which would have given him a brightly colored appearance.

In death, buried under layers of sediment, minerals such as iron and silicon slowly filtered out and replaced the bone, leaving what Dr. Fitzgerald described as an “exact replica” of the skeleton, colored a dark chocolate brown.

Montana is the ideal country for dinosaur hunting. Ancient forests mean there are many buried bones, which erosion and tectonic uplift are now beginning to reveal. Those bones are a hot commodity: Oil and gas companies tried to argue this year in the state supreme court that the fossils were technically minerals and therefore should belong to them.

The new Melbourne triceratops was found completely by accident. A private dinosaur hunter, while hiking through the badlands, was forced to climb a slope after heavy rains swept his path. As the clouds cleared, the sun glinted on the white bone, recently revealed by the rains.