A Triceratops that died 67 million years in what is now Montana left behind a spectacular fossil that is now the centerpiece of a new exhibit in Australia. (Image credit: Museums Victoria)
LiveScience has the story of a very large and nearly complete Triceratops in the land down under. A Triceratops, nicknamed "Horridus" after its species name Triceratops horridus, is now on display in a new exhibit "Triceratops: Fate of the Dinosaurs," at the Melbourne Museum in Australia. The specimen is about 85% complete and died about 67 million years ago in what is now Montana. There is a very interesting 3D digital model of Horridus on the museum's website.
Horridus was an herbivore, or plant-eating dinosaur, that lived during the Cretaceous period (about 145 million to 66 million years ago), and it grew to an impressive size. The fossil contains more than 260 bones and weighs more than 2,200 pounds (1,000 kilograms). It measures nearly 23 feet (7 m) long and stands over 6.6 feet (2 m) tall.
The skull, which is 98% complete, is tipped with two slender horns at the brow and a stubby horn atop the nose. The neck frill spans 4.9 feet (1.5 m), and the skull weighs about 575 pounds (261 kg). The fossil was discovered on private land in Montana in 2014, and Museums Victoria — the Australian organization that operates three state-owned museums in Melbourne — acquired the specimen in 2020, the museum announced in December that year.
When Horridus arrived in Melbourne, it was in pieces in eight crates — some of which were car-size, museum representatives said. Fossil preparers measured, labeled and 3D-scanned each bone before the skeleton was assembled for display. While many articulated Triceratops skeletons are exhibited around the world, only Horridus and a handful of others are made of bones that came from one individual animal, said Erich Fitzgerald, a senior curator of vertebrate paleontology at Museums Victoria in Australia.
