Natural History, including Gorgosaurus
Natural History, including Gorgosaurus
Triceratops Complete Beak — Predentary
No reserve
Auction Closed
July 28, 03:27 PM GMT
Estimate
4,000 - 6,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Triceratops Complete Beak — Predentary
Triceratops horridus
Late Cretaceous (approx. 67 million years ago)
Lance Creek Formation, Weston County, Wyoming
10 by 7½ by 4½ inches (25.4 x 19 x 11.4 cm). 12 inches (30.5 cm) tall on custom stand. 5 pounds (2.3 kg).
Fossilized lower jaw beak (predentary) of an adult individual. Virtually complete and in exceptionally good condition without restoration. The predentary bone is preserved with the natural surface structure and detail, and is without distortion or erosion. The bone core displays numerous deep branching grooves and pits (nutrient canals and foramina), which in life supplied blood to the beak’s outer sheath. Mounted on a custom display stand.
The herbivorous Triceratops (aka "three-horned face") is undoubtedly one of the world's best-known and most popular dinosaurs, due in great part to their distinctive bony frills, keratinous beaks, and three-horned skulls. These massive herbivores were required to consume large amounts of Cretaceous foodstuffs, possibly including ferns, palms, and cycads.
In order to ingest such volumes of fibrous plant material, Triceratops would use their beaks to strip and cut vegetation before moving it to the back of the mouth for further processing. The rear of the jaw housed hundreds of teeth arranged in a series of stacked and interlocking vertical columns. These adaptations allowed Triceratops to eat hundreds of pounds of food per day.