A young Triceratops skull was auctioned at Christie’s for £ 500,000 (€ 587,000) and set the world record for a dinosaur skull. The current specimen comes from a Triceratops prorsus, a dinosaur that lived in the late Cretaceous period (68-65 million years ago): the skull is 165.1 cm long, with 60.96 cm horns. The Christie’s online auction that dispersed the lots of the “Science and Natural History” catalog totaled 1,841,250 pounds (2,161,627 euros) With its three-horned head, concluded by a pointed beak and a flared frill, the Triceratops is one of the most famous dinosaur species. It lived at the same time as Tyrannosaurus rex in the late Cretaceous period, the final period of the dinosaurs that ended with their mass extinction about 65 million years ago. A Triceratops skull is emblematic of the creature’s strong defense and threat of counterattack, and among the most recognizable skulls of any animal, alive or extinct. The current specimen, with its arched brow horns and tall nasal horn is one of the few specimens to come to market.These herbivores could grow up to 9 meters in length and weigh up to 12 tons, wandering in a region that is now east of the Rocky Mountains in North America. In the Cretaceous period this habitat would have been characterized by a dense fauna, swamps and shallow seas, which provided abundant nourishment to any herbivore. The diet of the Triceratops, as evidenced by its toothless beak, mainly included palm fronds. The horns were therefore not to hunt prey, but to protect themselves from apex predators such as Tyrannosaurus rex. While its bulky bulk still left it exposed to an unexpected attack, a single blow from a horn could potentially tear a predator to pieces in the neck or heart, mortally wounding it.
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