i dont know if i can post threads about dinos btu sicne i saw a few dinos thread here so Well. it is found that Torosaurs May Just be a Triceratops in a mature stage MSU News Service - MSU finds <i>Triceratops</i>, <I>Torosaurus</i> were different stages of one dinosaur
First they decide Pluto isn't a planet, then the Triceratops is a Torosaurus... Oh, come on! Edit: Jack Horner. That explains everything. Please don't let this guy near the new Jurassic Park movies.
Jack Horner is one of the world's leading expert in Vertebrate Paleontology and specializes in Dinosaur parenting as well as Dinosaur Biology. He discovered and named the dinosaur Maiasaura Peeblesorum along with that, he discovered the largest Tyrannosaurus rex specimen, even larger than Sue and possibly larger than the other large therapods such as Giganotosaurus and Carcharodontosaurus. Jack Horner theorizes it is also possible to create a dinosaur via retro-engineering a modern bird (Such as a chicken) and re-activate the genes within it's DNA, thus giving the bird during it's development within the egg dinosaur-like features such as arms with claws, a tail, teeth, and even bumpy/scaly skin. Well, after that short biography this is very interesting news, and sad news that one of my top five favorite ornithischians is pretty much non-existent So basically, what we know as Triceratops was just a sub-adult Torosaurus. What happens as they mature is the frill of the skull extends outwards, and to lighten it two large holes appear within the frill, covered with skin and most likely was used as a mating display where it would flow with blood, probably creating a sort of bright red/orange/pinkish color. (The frill could not have provided any protection what-so-ever, too think and it would never survive the ten ton bite force of a Tyrannosaurus.) Here's a good image to take a look at: Since Triceratops is the more popular name, I hope they just reclassify the two species as Triceratops torosus. What made you think that? I don't see a rule on here that says no discussion of dinosaurs. There wouldn't be one anyway, many Transformer characters have a dinosaur alternate mode after all.
Honestly? They'll probably just call them both Triceratops, as its the earlier name, no? But if Torosaurus is the mature form, maybe they'd go with that instead. Triceratops would still be an accurate name for either/both though, no?
I hope they just go with Triceratops instead. Really there aren't many science textbooks that mention Torosaurus more than Triceratops, actually come to think of it I've never read about any dinosaur other than Triceratops, Tyrannosaurus, Apatosaurus, and Stegosaurus (The Fab Four, as I call them ) in a science textbook, and a few Triassic dinosaurs and the mention of the first evolved birds such as Archaeopteryx. Yes if they decide to reclassify Torosaurus as the species Triceratops, no if they decide to reclassify Triceratops as the species Torosaurus. Plus to add to the confusion that I now have, there are a couple of subspecies of each, so will those be reclassified as well? I'm not sure. Someone get Bumblethumper over here While Paleontology doesn't seem to be too popular around here (It's a Transformers forum after all lol) doesn't mean people can't discuss it. And please can you use spell check? Not to rag on you or anything dude, but download FireFox or Google Chrome if you have to, both of those have an automatic spell check programmed into them. I prefer Google Chrome actually, so easy to use Back on topic, when you think about it, that all dinosaurs basically looked less like their adult form when they were very young, we may have to reclassify many species. Hell, maybe a quarter of all the species discovered so far might disappear. I see this as good news though, nothing wrong with discovering you're wrong. To me it opens up a new window of opportunities and discoveries to be made Success comes from failure after all, right?
I would love to read the journal article on this, though the news article was good enough to whet my appetite. It's a fascinating idea, but I can see some sense in it.
I would assume the distinct frill of Torosaurus is unique, and unless Triceratops had incest... xD Kidding. Seriously? Triceratops Torosaur works. They're one big happy family. We still have many more species to dig up. And it wouldn't surprise me if we got some groundbreaking info.
i am comfortable with science and the constant acquisition of new information. but just once, i want to see those Paleo-geeks have a little fun just to mess with us. like maybe announce a new species of elephant with a latin name that means "Fat ass, hairless Clydesdale-thingy" in an April issue of Nature or something. anyway, it is fascinating stuff to know that new species are identified by the smallest of details, and are revealed through a fossilized lottery system. (an animal wins immortality by being at the right place for being preserved for so long that we find it.)
That's different. The "brontosaurus" skeleton had the wrong skull on it, so didn't actually represent any animal that actually existed. So the name got ditched. However, if triceratops was named first, by the rules of binomial nomenclature, it should stick. - Coeloptera
It goes on which was named first, so Triceratops has priority. Triceratops - 1889 Torosaurus - 1891. I didn't really want to believe it. I like Torosaurus. But apparently it's well supported with evidence. Museum of the Rockies has the largest Triceratops collection, and they found so much overlap between the two that they could no longer be viewed as separate animals. The way I like to think of it now is that what was once called Torosaurus, is actually like the Triceratops equivalent of a 'silverback'. There used to be almost twenty different species of Triceratops on the books, but of those only two are still recognised. It was just a very common animal and there's a lot of variety from one skull to another. Triceratops horridus, and Triceratops prorsus are the remaining species. It'll be interesting to see if the various Torosaurus specimens get split between these two species, or if they are just from one. It doesn't look like the Torosaurus species(T.latus) would get carried over, since both 'horridus' and 'prorsus' pre-date it.
The Brontosaurus situation is actually much the same. Apatosaurus was named first. Elmer Riggs found them to be the same genus back in 1903, but popular use of the Brontosaurus name continued. Riggs dug up the Apatosaurus skeleton in Chicago's Field Museum(and also the Brachiosaurus, which he named). The skull situation is a separate matter that was cleared up once and for all in the 1970s. For years there was no Apatosaurus skull, and so skeletons had been mounted with a composite skull based on Brachiosaurus and Camarasaurus. The Carnegie museum actually found a skull with their Apatosaurus but were discouraged from mounting it, and their skeleton was left headless for decades. In the 1970s, John Mcintosh went through the records and determined once and for all that the skull was from the same skeleton. It was with the publicity during that period where skulls were switched on skeletons that it became more widely known that Brontosaurus was an invalid genus. But basically it had been invalid since 1903. Interestingly, Apatosaurus, Brontosaurus, Triceratops, and Torosaurus were all named by the same guy, Othniel Marsh.
maybe it just leveled up enough to evolve to its next form? tyrannosaurus probably gives a ton of EXP.
That was a neat read. I generally do not like reading his stuff, but that has been something I have been wondering about for quite some time. I know it shrinks the dino ranks a bit, but what if like modern animals, could there be a difference between males and females? Just an idea
I don't know about Swoop though, as i have read somewhere that Dinosaurs don't fly (or swim), Although this was years back i don't know about now. I was thinking the same thing myself ... "if i remembered hearing correctly on a documentary", maybe it is something like the Male Rhino's mating thing where they use there horn to attract or/and compete for mates (they could even be sort of something like pack leaders in wolfs ).... If so it could also explain, why there is not that many of them ( killed before fossilization ). Though, i am sure they would of realized this by now if it was so. anyway just an opinion ...
