Re: TRICERATOPS MAXIMUS SKULL PHOTO - GOT IT!

[Luis Rey <luisrey@ndirect.co.uk>]

I must say that the gigantic specimen I took the picture from is indeed 
not called "Triceratops maximus". It is  as you well say a large 
species of Triceratops horridus. The type specimen for Triceratops 
maximus consist in fragments of vertebrae, other scraps of bone and not 
much more. So that skull was used not to represent Triceratops maximus 
(as such) but just to illustrate the possible size and appearance of  a 
gigantic Triceratops  species. Bakker has never wanted to call this 
precise skull of Triceratops ' Triceratops maximus' (not that I know 
anyway).

Just in case...

On 30 May 2004, at 17:59, Danvarner@aol.com wrote:

> Reposting this since I apparently didn't get all the html's out the 
> last
> time:
>        Yes, I'm quite sure this is the skull that Jim Jensen and Bruce
> Erickson collected in 1963 in Montana and is figured in the field with 
> two photos in
> Bruce's _Dinosaurs of the Science Museum of Minnesota: A Curator's 
> Notebook_.
> It appears to be a large horridus, the same as the specimen mounted in 
> the
> Science Museum. Erickson noted in his 1966 paper "Mounted specimen of
> Triceratops prorsus in the Science Museum" (this was before prorsus 
> was made a junior
> synonym of horridus) that his mounted specimen (still the world's 
> largest mount,
> I believe) represented a sub-adult and suggested the type of prorsus 
> was a
> "runt". He also mentioned a much larger fragmentary specimen from 
> Saskatchewan.
> So this is all old business and suggesting this is a new taxon is a bit
> disingenuous. But that should come as no surprise. DV
Luis Rey

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