More than old bones: New study sheds light on Triceratops behavior and living habits – The Dickinson Press

Larry the Triceratops was first unearthed in the 67 million year old Hell Creek Formation of the U.S. Forest Service lands in southwest North Dakota in 1988 by former museum curator, Larry League. With over 70% of the skeleton preserved, the unusually complete specimen was placed on public display at Dickinsons dinosaur museum in 1993.

A little over two decades later, Fowler, while cleaning the skeleton with his staff, noticed a peculiar feature near the end of the dinosaurs tail: an angled crimp showing evidence of an injury sustained while the animal was still alive.

We were in there dusting everything and it just jumped out at me, Fowler told The Press, detailing the experience of his discovery. It was a really cool thing to see. We all have a bit of injury that were reminded of when bad weather occurs or we move wrong; The idea that dinosaurs were exactly the same is really cool.

Fowler held on to the project until he was approached by Illies who also took an interest in the animals life as a living creature. Together, the pair set to analyzing the crooked vertebrae in the hopes of determining the injurys possible cause.

The study proposes a few different hypotheses that might explain how the injury occured, a press release issued by the Dickinson Museum Center. Perhaps the tail was clumsily struck against a tree or rock. Maybe the injury could have been caused during an attack, being bitten by a Tyrannosaurus rex.

However, considering the fairly frequent appearance of these kinds of malformations in Triceratops, the likelihood of a T-rex attack seems quite low to Fowler. What seems more likely to the investigators is that the tail was accidentally stamped on by another of its kind in a herd-like setting.

Its a real example of some sort of behavior an event that happened in this animals life, Fowler said as he described the dinosaurs environment and behavior on the prehistoric Western Edge. It was really flat and a bit swampy. Things like Triceratops are actually more common in these swampy environments; They seem to like it more swampy.

Only within the last decade have researchers truly begun to understand the living habits of this supposedly social creature.

Weve started to find groups, preserved together, now, so we think they may have been in small groups, Fowler said. were not talking hundreds and hundreds like you might see in bison, but we are talking about small groups of maybe five to ten individuals.

No matter the findings, Fowler and his staff are admittedly happy to breathe life into the areas Cretaceous history with the new study and its accompanying exhibit.

It gives character to something thats been at the museum for quite some time, but it tells us a story about Larry the Triceratops, the researcher said. It also shows the new direction for the museum: were looking at researching the specimens weve had here for a long time, finding out new things about them and also finding new specimens.

Fowler had this to say of his institutions overall objectives: We had a nice picture done and hopefully it will show that Dickinson, as an institution, is growing were starting to produce research and hopefully it will get noted. Rather than being dusty old bones, these were animals that had events happen in their lives.

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More than old bones: New study sheds light on Triceratops behavior and living habits - The Dickinson Press