Quick Facts
Triceratops horridus
Pronounced (TRY-SARE-OH-TOPS HOAR-ID-DUS)
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Nickname:
"Pookie" |
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Discovery
Location: Harding County, SD |
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Diet: Plants (Herbivore) |
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Period: Late
Cretaceous |
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Age: 66
million years |
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Formation:
Hell Creek |
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Length: 20
feet |
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Location of
Original Specimen: RMDRC, Woodland Park, CO |
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Pookie is
named after RMDRC Curator Anthony Maltese's little sister. This Triceratops
was found on her birthday in June, 2006, and was named in her honor. Pookie's
bones show evidence of some weathering before they were covered with sediment
in the Cretaceous, including fossilized worm burrows.
Pictures
We are nearly
finished with prep on the skull elements, which will be molded and restored
soon. We are not preparing any of the ribs yet, but that may soon change.
Pookie's jugal (cheekbone) in the rock.
The same bone after all of the matrix has been removed in the lab
Triceratops, like many horned dinosaurs, fuses its first 4 neck vertebrae into
a single block called the syncervical. This is the last vertebra from that
block. It was not completely fused and broke loose after death, indicating
that Pookie was not full grown yet!
Pookie's quadrate, the skull bone that attaches to the lower jaw.
Field Notes
This is a copy
of the bone map made at the site. Each bone is given an individual number in
the field so that it can be tracked when it returns to the lab. The solid U
shaped line denotes the edge of the hillside, below which all of the sediment
has eroded away. From this map we can see that the skull was oriented facing
south, with the left side elements to the east. With this information, we have
decided to return this summer to work on the west side of the site, perhaps
locating the rest of the skull.
Lab Notes
Preparation has taken nearly a month due to extensive ironstone concretion on
the undersides of the bones.Once all of the matrix was removed, some exciting
features were discovered on the bones, including a ridge of bumps going up the
midline of the frill, as well as a very large "pineal eye" opening on the top
of the skull.
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