Uploaded November 2023 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Triceratops was a gigantic chasmosaurine, a group of ceratopsians with long frills and brow horns. It lived in Late Cretaceous North America and was one of the most formidable herbivores in its ecosystem at 5 to 8 tonnes as an adult. It lived alongside Tyrannosaurus rex, the most powerful theropod known to science. Media often portrays the battle between Triceratops and Tyrannosaurus as very one-sided, whether that be Triceratops easily repulsing the predator or Tyrannosaurus casually taking down the tank of an herbivore. What does the fossil record indicate about the combat that happened between Triceratops and Tyrannosaurus, and what do paleontologists have to say about it? This video includes a sneak peek at groundbreaking research on ceratopsian agility being done by graduate student Kyle Atkins-Weltman, along with input from theropod biomechanics expert Eric J. Snively.
Background Image from Vecteezy. Thumbnail art by Herschel Hoffmeyer/Arturo Garcia.
Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
uppbeat.io/t/roo-walker/awakening
License code: ATDT6U6AUEVXVG5X
SOURCES
Horner et al. 2011 found that Triceratops made up 40% of the dinosaur fauna in Hell Creek. journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0016574
First Triceratops bonebed
jstor.org/stable/20491089?seq=2
Tyrannosaurus feeding on a Triceratops pelvis, postmortem tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02724634.1996.10011297
We know Tyrannosaurus actively hunted hadrosaurs
pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1216534110
Trikes likely used horns for intraspecific combat (Farke et al. 2009; D’Anastasio 2022)
journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0004252
nature.com/articles/s41598-022-08033-2
Adapted for hearing low frequencies; not adapted for rapid posture stabilization or side-to-side head movement (Sakagami and Kawabe 2020)
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7505063
Likely a solitary animal with very rare group formations. Not known from bone beds like other ceratopsians
dinomuseum.ca/2019/01/a-day-in-the-life-of-triceratops#:~:text=The%20differences%20between%20the%20two,and%20a%20shorter%2C%20deeper%20snout.
Triceratops survived getting bitten on the horns by a T.rex
myfossil.org/featured-fossil-triceratops-vs-tyrannosaurus
Join this channel to get access to perks:
youtube.com/channel/UCmkkmzfWWf4HzrO8SGO3gjw/join
Triceratops was a gigantic chasmosaurine, a group of ceratopsians with long frills and brow horns. It lived in Late Cretaceous North America and was one of the most formidable herbivores in its ecosystem at 5 to 8 tonnes as an adult. It lived alongside Tyrannosaurus rex, the most powerful theropod known to science. Media often portrays the battle between Triceratops and Tyrannosaurus as very one-sided, whether that be Triceratops easily repulsing the predator or Tyrannosaurus casually taking down the tank of an herbivore. What does the fossil record indicate about the combat that happened between Triceratops and Tyrannosaurus, and what do paleontologists have to say about it? This video includes a sneak peek at groundbreaking research on ceratopsian agility being done by graduate student Kyle Atkins-Weltman, along with input from theropod biomechanics expert Eric J. Snively.
Background Image from Vecteezy. Thumbnail art by Herschel Hoffmeyer/Arturo Garcia.
Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
uppbeat.io/t/roo-walker/awakening
License code: ATDT6U6AUEVXVG5X
SOURCES
Horner et al. 2011 found that Triceratops made up 40% of the dinosaur fauna in Hell Creek. journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0016574
First Triceratops bonebed
jstor.org/stable/20491089?seq=2
Tyrannosaurus feeding on a Triceratops pelvis, postmortem tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02724634.1996.10011297
We know Tyrannosaurus actively hunted hadrosaurs
pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1216534110
Trikes likely used horns for intraspecific combat (Farke et al. 2009; D’Anastasio 2022)
journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0004252
nature.com/articles/s41598-022-08033-2
Adapted for hearing low frequencies; not adapted for rapid posture stabilization or side-to-side head movement (Sakagami and Kawabe 2020)
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7505063
Likely a solitary animal with very rare group formations. Not known from bone beds like other ceratopsians
dinomuseum.ca/2019/01/a-day-in-the-life-of-triceratops#:~:text=The%20differences%20between%20the%20two,and%20a%20shorter%2C%20deeper%20snout.
Triceratops survived getting bitten on the horns by a T.rex
myfossil.org/featured-fossil-triceratops-vs-tyrannosaurus
Join this channel to get access to perks:
youtube.com/channel/UCmkkmzfWWf4HzrO8SGO3gjw/join
