Evolving Triceratops Evidence Found In Montana’s Hell Creek Formation b4in.org/f5Cl For the last 15 summers, research teams from the Museum of the Rockies have been exploring the badlands of Eastern Montana to excavate dinosaur bones from the Hell Creek Formation. Those teams have made many exciting and important discoveries regarding some of the last dinosaurs to walk our planet. Their latest study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, involves the evolution of perhaps one of the most popular dinosaurs, the Triceratops. Montana State University (MSU) doctoral candidate John Scannella and his colleagues examined more than 50 specimens collected in recent years to discover the new insights revealed in the study. The team recorded precise stratigraphic (rock layer) data for each Triceratops, then analyzed the morphological details of the skull. This allowed them to see evolutionary trends in the Triceratops fossils. They found that during a one- to two-million-year period near the end of the Cretaceous, Triceratops changed. The early Triceratops (Triceratops horridus) had a small nasal horn and a long beak and was only found lower in the Hell Creek Formation. By the end of the transformation, the Triceratops had a large nasal horn and a shorter beak. This Triceratops (Triceratops prorsus) was only found at the upper end of the Hell Creek Formation. The team found skulls near the middle of the Formation, however, that showed characteristics of both T. horridus and T. prorsus. “This study provides a detailed look at shifts in the morphology of a single dinosaur genus over time,” Scannella said. More b4in.org/f5Cl
Posted on: Fri, 04 Jul 2014 07:04:47 +0000