So it turns out that most of what we know about dinosaurs is lies.
ALL LIES. And Steven Spielberg seduced us with deception in the greatest movie of all time, Jurassic Park.
If you’re not keen on having your childhood memories of triceratops and all his mates shattered, then don’t read on. If you value the truth, click through.
Read this:
DINOSAURS were shape-shifters. Their skulls underwent extreme changes throughout their lives, growing larger, sprouting horns then reabsorbing them, and changing shape so radically that different stages look to us like different species.
This discovery comes from a study of the iconic dinosaur triceratops and its close relative torosaurus. Their skulls are markedly different but are actually from the very same species, argue John Scannella and Jack Horner at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana.
Triceratops had three facial horns and a short, thick neck-frill with a saw-toothed edge. Torosaurus also had three horns, though at different angles, and a much longer, thinner, smooth-edged frill with two large holes in it. So it’s not surprising that Othniel Marsh, who discovered both in the late 1800s, considered them to be separate species.
Now Scannella and Horner say that triceratops is merely the juvenile form of torosaurus. As the animal aged, its horns changed shape and orientation and its frill became longer, thinner and less jagged. Finally it became fenestrated, producing the classic torosaurus form.
So it’s not SURPRISING that Othniel Marsh considered them to be separate species?
Well, I’m sorry, Othniel. I’m past my teens. There’s no time left for me to realign my childhood understanding of the dinosaurs.
TRICERATOPS WAS ONE OF MY FAVOURITES, OTHNIEL. No one even CARES about torosaurus! He was always the lame one whose card you wanted to swap first, and you NEVER gave up the triceratops. You only parted with that bad boy of your T-rex or Velocoraptors were under threat.
Frikkin hell. I’m gonna buy a chomp and a steri stumpie, and try to salvage what’s left of my formative years.
Damn you, Othniel. Damn you, Spielberg. Damn you, science.
[Source : NewScientist]
