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Triceratops (/ t r aɪ ˈ s ɛr ə t ɒ p s / try-SERR-ə-tops; [1] lit. ' three-horned face ') is a genus of chasmosaurine ceratopsian dinosaur that lived during the late Maastrichtian age of the Late Cretaceous period, about 68 to 66 million years ago in what is now western North America.
Ceratopsidae (sometimes spelled Ceratopidae) is a family of ceratopsian dinosaurs including Triceratops, Centrosaurus, and Styracosaurus. All known species were quadrupedal herbivores from the Upper Cretaceous. All but one species are known from western North America, which formed the island continent of Laramidia during most of the Late ...
In 1966 John Ostrom postulated that the diet of late Cretaceous chasmosaurs such as Triceratops and Torosaurus fed on very resistant and fibrous materials like the fronds of cycad or palm plants. [20] By extension, all Ceratopsids had a shearing dentition and efficient, powerful jaw mechanics that allowed them to feed on tough vegetation.
Triceratops fossils are far and away the most common dinosaur remains found in the latest Cretaceous rocks in the western United States, making up as much as 5/6ths of the large dinosaur fauna in some areas. [33] These facts indicate that some ceratopsians were the dominant herbivores in their environments.
The carnivore and herbivore tracks, which are about 166 million years old, cross over at one point, raising questions about whether and how the two types of dinosaur were interacting, the ...
Herbivory is of extreme ecological importance and prevalence among insects.Perhaps one third (or 500,000) of all described species are herbivores. [4] Herbivorous insects are by far the most important animal pollinators, and constitute significant prey items for predatory animals, as well as acting as major parasites and predators of plants; parasitic species often induce the formation of galls.
In the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic, the continents were connected as the single landmass Pangaea, and there was a worldwide dinosaur fauna mostly composed of coelophysoid carnivores and early sauropodomorph herbivores. [121]
While present, dinosaur eggshell is very rare in the Dinosaur Park Formation and is only found in two different microfossil sites. These sites are distinguished by large numbers of pisidiid clams and other less common shelled invertebrates, like unionid clams and snails. This association is not a coincidence, as the invertebrate shells would ...