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What Did Triceratops Eat ?
The triceratops had a turtle-like beak with powerful jaws and cheek teeth. It was herbivorous and lived near lakes and ponds preferring a humid environment. The triceratops chewed its food because of its teeth and strong jaws. In this it differed from other plant-eating dinosaurs which invariably tugged on their food and swallowed it. This gave the triceratops a distinct advantage in foraging as it could handle the tougher plant food that other animals, because of their lack of chewing ability, would avoid. |
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The triceratops was a strange looking animal that could best be compared with the rhinoceros of today. It had a bulky body with a short tail which hung low or dragged behind. Its total body length was about 30 feet and weight between 6 and 12 tons. The triceratops’ head was one of the largest in the dinosaur kingdom being about a third of the body length. The animal was heavily armored with a large bony plate that grew from the back of the skull. It had three formidable horns, one short that grew above the beak and the other two located behind the eyes. The latter grew to as long as 3 feet. The horns were forward pointing such that they would have impaled an opponent when a triceratops lowered its head and charged.
The triceratops is believed to have moved in herds presumably because of innate protective instincts. This was an age with a number of carnivorous predators like T-Rex from which the triceratops had to protect itself and its babies.
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Dinosaur:
Where Did The Triceratops Live ?
 The triceratops is believed to have lived in western Canada and the western part of the United States. The first fossil was a skull found by John Bell Hatcher in 1888. But the triceratops was so named the following year by the paleontologist Othoniel Marsh from a fossil found near Denver, Colorado which he mistakenly took to be that of an extinct species of buffalo. More..
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