Triceratops Of The Badlands

Many years ago a cowboy riding over the "Bad Land" country in eastern Wyoming was attracted by a horn-shaped object, which he saw protruding from a ledge of sandstone. Dismounting, he broke off this projecting end and returned with it to the ranch where later it fell into the hands of Mr. J. B. Hatcher, an enthusiastic collector of fossil specimens, who recognized it as the horn core of some extinct animal. This incident marked the discovery of the famous Lance Creek locality, which has since become classic ground on account of the great number of horned dinosaur specimens that have been found there.

Hatcher in the course of three seasons' work collected here no less than forty skulls of the huge-headed dinosaur known as Triceratops. Triceratops (three-horned-face) so named in allusion to the three horns with which the skull is adorned, was the largest headed land animal the world has ever known. Skulls have been found measuring eight feet in length, though an average specimen would be about six feet. This great length of head is largely due to the bony frill which projects backward over the neck like a fireman's helmet, and reminds one of the large ruffs worn at the back of the neck in Queen Elizabeth's time.

An articulated skeleton of one of these animals on exhibition in the U. S. National Museum in Washington is about twenty feet long and stands eight feet high at the hips. Although the largest-headed animal the brain of this creature is remarkably small, being little more than the size of a man's closed fist. That Triceratops engaged in combat seems to be shown by the broken bones that are often found which have healed during the life of the animal. A pair of horns in the National Museum show the results of such an encounter for it is evident that one of them was broken in life from the fact that the stump had rounded over and healed, while the size of the horns shows the animal to have reached a good old age.

The difficulties of collecting these huge skulls can well be imagined, when it is stated that one of them in the enveloping rock weighed nearly two tons when ready for shipment in a deep canyon, fifty miles from the railway. In earlier restorations of Triceratops the skin covering was represented as being smooth and leathery, but the discovery in recent years of large patches of skin impressions show it to be made up of a series of non-imbricating scales of various sizes. This restoration embodies all of the evidence of more recent discoveries and to that extent at least presents a truer conception of the life appearance of this animal.