SV-POW! endorses Triceratops
May 6, 2016
Today, we were at the BYU Museum of Paleontology, which is in a ridiculously scenic setting with snow-capped mountains on the horizon in almost every direction.
We got through a lot of good work in collections, and we’ll show you some photos from there in due course. But for today, here are a couple of pictures from the public galleries.
First, here in a single photo is definitive proof that the “Toroceratops hypothesis” is wrong:
Say what you want about ontegenetic trajectories, that huge and well ossified Triceratops is not a juvenile of anything.
Good, glad we got that sorted out.
Meanwhile, at the even better end of the gallery, here is a very nice — and very well lit — cast of the famous articulated juvenile Camarasaurus specimen CM 11338 described by Gilmore (1925):
Further bulletins as events warrant.
References
Gilmore, Charles W. 1925. A nearly complete articulated skeleton of
Camarasaurus, a saurischian dinosaur from the Dinosaur National
Monument, Utah. Memoirs of the Carnegie Museum 10:347-384.
Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week 
May 6, 2016 at 4:15 am
Check out the real specimen of the large skull when you are in Fruita at DJ.
May 6, 2016 at 7:37 am
It seems that this triceratops skull is bigger than “Yoshi’s Trike” and this must be what was called “the largest triceratops”(I’ve heard that it was overestimated,though) .I regret that it rucks horns and the rest of its bodies(perhaps they are under preparation…).
May 6, 2016 at 1:35 pm
minor problem is that the frill is partially reconstructed. You can see the restored boundary on that cast
May 6, 2016 at 1:36 pm
Interesting, Ken! Hopefully, as Dinochick suggests, we’ll get to see the real thing later on this trip.
May 6, 2016 at 5:56 pm
Aren’t you endorsing Torosaurus? I thought that’s what would disappear if they really were one species.
May 6, 2016 at 11:38 pm
Good point, Derek! I think of Triceratops as being the one to lose out because it’s the juvenile; but nomenclaturily you’re dead right.
May 7, 2016 at 5:00 pm
That’s one nice big trike skull. Pity we don’t have anything like that on Appalachia. Cheers.
May 8, 2016 at 2:34 am
It never ceases to amaze me how well preserved CM 11338 is, especially for a sauropod.
May 9, 2016 at 2:12 pm
Mike, did you have a chance to see BYU’s other fossils? There’s a terrific collection under the stadium and in Special Collections (mostly partial skeletons, but some great pieces)
May 9, 2016 at 2:17 pm
We’ll be back at BYU later in the week, and should be able to see everything they have (though obviously not to give it all the time it deserves). Is there still material under the football stadium? I thought it had all been moved into the newish big bone room.
May 9, 2016 at 7:42 pm
Your totally right that most of the collection was moved from the stadium- old info on my part. There are a few holdings of the collection sprinkled across campus. I worked in L Tom Perry Special Collection- and loved seeing some of the smaller and fragile fossils there.
May 13, 2016 at 5:29 pm
(Re: “Toroceratops”) To put it another way, you must give up the junior synonym, not Junior’s synonym. Ha! ;)
(Shoulda thought of that a week ago…)
February 13, 2017 at 8:01 pm
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June 26, 2020 at 2:24 am
Three cheers for Triceratops!
I say SV-POW ought to endorse it some more!