Triceratops

NAME MEANING - Three Horned face
HEIGHT - 10ft
LENGTH - 29ft
WEIGHT - 8.2 Tonnes
LOCATION - North America - Hell Creek formation
TIME PERIOD - Maastichitian stage of the Late Cretaceous - 68 to 66 million years ago
DIET - Herbivore 
CLASSIFICATION - Archosaur - Dinosaur - Ornithischian- Marginocephalia
FAMILY - Ceratopsian - Chasmosaurine - Triceratopsid

Triceratops is one of the most famous dinosaurs known to man (2nd only to Tyrannosaurus) and due to this popularity you will find it hard to find a dinosaur related thing that doesn't have the 2 battling it out in a struggle for life and death.
Its fossils were found in the hell creek formation in the year 1888 and were originally believed to have belonged to a giant bison and was named "Bison Alticornis", the next year it would be labeled correctly as a dinosaur and was renamed Triceratops a year later in 1889.
It is a member of the Marginocephalia a group of Ornithochians whose members included the ceratopsians like Styracosaurus and Chasmosaurus, and the Pachycephalosaurid dinosaurs which include dinosaurs like Pachycephalosaurus, Stegocerus and Homalocephale.

In 2010 there was some controversy between whether the ceratopsian Torosaurus is in fact a matured Triceratops, although this isn't a very accepted idea, this is due to the two dinosaurs possessing similar features such as both having three horns, both lived in Hell Creek and both living around the same time, although more people seem to agree that the two are different species as Torosaurus has a much larger frill with windows and triceratops has been found with larger individuals than Torosaurus showing that Torosaurus couldn't have been a more matured species of triceratops.
At the very least the two ceratopsids did meet now and then but Torosaurus lived in a different part of the area than triceratops so this was unlikely to happen.

Triceratops is named after the 3 horns on its face, these horns could have been used to fend off predators like Tyrannosaurus by thrusting them into the large carnivore, the horns could have also been used to battle rivals in shoving battles as there have been small marks on the skulls of triceratops that could be a sign of these head to head fights.
The horns of Triceratops actually start of as small spikes at the beginning of its life and as it matures to be a juvenile the horns curl up and backward to form upward curved C-shape horns, these horns would change to a more forward position as the animal grew older until it reached its full maturity and the horns now face forward.
The species chosen in this picture is T.Prorsus which is a Triceratops species that was larger than the more well known T.Horridus species, and possessed a pair of inward curving C-shaped horns compared to the more straightened horns of T.Horridus.

Triceratops was related to a much smaller dinosaur in Asia called Psittacosaurus, this animal possessed long quills on its tail forming a large tail brush down the it and due to this Triceratops and many other Ceratopsids have been reconstructed with tail brushes, although there has been some arguing that due to the large size of the later ceratopsids, they would lack a need for a brush but instead have very small bristle of quills as shown here, as a remnant of its distant relative, Psittacosaurus

Triceratops like most other certatopsians had really powerful jaws and a sharp beak, the back of the jaws were packed with small teeth that were used to chew vegetation like ferns and conifers, it is also thought that ceratopsids also broke open wood with their beaks and cleave out the nutritious insides of fallen tree trunks, there have also been theories that ceratopsians like Triceratops would be able to scavenge from corpses, this holds up as herbivorous animals today like tortoises and giraffes  have been known to feed of dead animals for the needed protein and calcium, this would give the beaks of ceratopsians another use other than just feeding on plant matter.

The nasal cavity of the skull shows a large hole that can be seen clearly though it, this has lead to some reconstructions possessing nasal sacs that would puff up to both produce sound or could have been brightly coloured like the frill and could be used to attract mates or intimidate  attackers.

Triceratops is a Chasmosaurine ceratopsian, this can be seen with the specific features it shares with other members or the chasmosaurines, these are a large frill, narrow snout with short nose horns and large brow horns but unlike most other ceratopsians triceratops lacked any frill windows meaning the frill was made up of solid bone which would have been a much stronger defense compared to other chasmosaurines whose frills were mainly just for show.
The frill was most likely very brightly coloured for the purpose of either attracting a mate or to intimidate predators, another theory of the frills use is that it helped identify certain individuals from one another.
The pattern I've chosen here is to give the illusion of having multiple eyes as seen in avian dinosaurs such as the peacock.

Triceratops Prorsus died out 66 million years ago during the very end of the Mesozoic era, meaning it was 1 of the last living non avian dinosaurs to have ever existed on earth.


This is my 1st full body triceratops i have ever drew so if there is some inaccuracies then i am truly sorry, and if you think i missed out some info do tell me as i would gladly add the info in the description because i am happy to learn more about the coolest animals to have existed in my opinion
EDIT
i have remade the image as i wasn't too happy with some parts of the image.
the frill looked a little too tall, the feet didn't look right and it looked malnourished with it's hips being visible, so i updated it to be a bit more muscular with features that look like they belong on the animal, i hope you all enjoy the redesign and i hope i haven't messed anything up doing so
(OLDER VERSION HERE)
img00.deviantart.net/5252/i/20…

NASAL SAC CONCEPT
. img00.deviantart.net/7712/i/20…
. img00.deviantart.net/d7db/i/20…
HORN SHAPE CHANGE OVER TIME
. orig00.deviantart.net/22ce/f/2…