Samus_aran115 wrote:My childhood is ruined. Can't they just call everything a three horn?

Samus_aran115 wrote:"Hey. I like living."
"No,actually you're slowly dying for your entire life."
"*cries*"

Scientists are always TFG

Golden Eyed Scout wrote:

Samus_aran115 wrote:My childhood is ruined. Can't they just call everything a three horn?

LOL. Great reference. Too bad they killed hte series by making a thousand movies of it.

a bottle of cava wrote:They should just call them all knob jobs.

Orlanth wrote:There are plenty of dinosaurs for which we have incomplete remains. In fact it is quite rare to have a dinsoaur species for which we have good quality remains of both adult and juvenile specimens.

The lack of juvenile Torosaur specimens is not evidenece of itself. There weould need rto be a study on grouping of findings of Triceratops and Torosaur remains to even begin to float this theory.

Sorry two scientists with a pet theory are not enough to remove the Torosaur from the records as a seprate species, its an 'alternate hypothesis' nothing more. A footnote to both species records.

After collecting and examining dozens of specimens, the paleontologists found a graded continuum of growth from the smallest juvenile Triceratops all the way up to what has been called Torosaurus. (The difficult-to-classify specimen representing the genus Nedoceratops may also fall within this range of skull shapes.) On the basis of gross anatomy alone, it is easily seen how the frill of Triceratops changed as it aged, with large windows in the frill opening up as the dinosaur became an adult. But some of the most compelling evidence for these changes comes from bone anatomy that can be seen only under a microscope.

When Horner and Scanella looked at the bone structure of Triceratops brow horns, they found that what had previously been thought to be fully mature individuals still had some growing to do. These Triceratops specimens lacked the amount of dense, mature bone which would have been expected for a fully grown animal, and, instead, this kind of mature bone was found in the horns of Torosaurus. Since all the specimens identified as Torosaurus represent adults, and what were thought to be fully adult Triceratops are only young adults, the simplest explanation is that both are growth stages of Triceratops (which was named first, and therefore has priority for the genus name).

From what Scannella and Horner were able to tell, Triceratops retained juvenile characteristics (such as a solid frill) for most of its life before a rapid change before reaching maturity.

Vene wrote:

Orlanth wrote:There are plenty of dinosaurs for which we have incomplete remains. In fact it is quite rare to have a dinsoaur species for which we have good quality remains of both adult and juvenile specimens.

The lack of juvenile Torosaur specimens is not evidenece of itself. There weould need rto be a study on grouping of findings of Triceratops and Torosaur remains to even begin to float this theory.

Sorry two scientists with a pet theory are not enough to remove the Torosaur from the records as a seprate species, its an 'alternate hypothesis' nothing more. A footnote to both species records.

Yeah, about that, you're misrepresenting what they did. They actually did look at the remains, quite extensively. This is not a crackpot hypothesis, this conclusion is backed up by rigorous study.Link to scientific paper. Oh, yes, and they have greater evidence than you're even asking, they looked at the fossil's microscopic structures to come to their conclusions (another link).

From the second link:

After collecting and examining dozens of specimens, the paleontologists found a graded continuum of growth from the smallest juvenile Triceratops all the way up to what has been called Torosaurus. (The difficult-to-classify specimen representing the genus Nedoceratops may also fall within this range of skull shapes.) On the basis of gross anatomy alone, it is easily seen how the frill of Triceratops changed as it aged, with large windows in the frill opening up as the dinosaur became an adult. But some of the most compelling evidence for these changes comes from bone anatomy that can be seen only under a microscope.

When Horner and Scanella looked at the bone structure of Triceratops brow horns, they found that what had previously been thought to be fully mature individuals still had some growing to do. These Triceratops specimens lacked the amount of dense, mature bone which would have been expected for a fully grown animal, and, instead, this kind of mature bone was found in the horns of Torosaurus. Since all the specimens identified as Torosaurus represent adults, and what were thought to be fully adult Triceratops are only young adults, the simplest explanation is that both are growth stages of Triceratops (which was named first, and therefore has priority for the genus name).

From what Scannella and Horner were able to tell, Triceratops retained juvenile characteristics (such as a solid frill) for most of its life before a rapid change before reaching maturity.

Orlanth wrote:Misrepresenting nothing Vene. I can only go by the information given, everyone else had been using the same data so far.
In fact as the scientists have followed up with the sort of study I envisaged they needed it looks like my comments were fairly close to the mark.

Thinglike wrote:Man, I just don't understand why anyone is upset here. If the ideas that triceratops and torosaurus are the same thing is true it doesn't mean that triceratops never existed, it just means it's horns and skull frill got bigger as it got older. How is that not awesome? Pluto didn't stop existing, either. My childhood remains un-ruined.

Orlanth wrote:Thats obvious enough, but only from knowing from hindsight there was one.

Orlanth wrote:

Thinglike wrote:Man, I just don't understand why anyone is upset here. If the ideas that triceratops and torosaurus are the same thing is true it doesn't mean that triceratops never existed, it just means it's horns and skull frill got bigger as it got older. How is that not awesome? Pluto didn't stop existing, either. My childhood remains un-ruined.

Not everyone has stopped calling Pluto a planet either. Why care that the orbit is illiptical, its still a very large rock orbiting the sun.