August 5, 2010
Relax — Triceratops Really Did Exist
A skeleton of Triceratops on display at the AMNH. This particular specimen exhibits variations in the skull which are similar to what scientists have seen in what has previously been called Torosaurus. From Wikipedia.
During the past week, people all over the Internet have driven themselves into a tizzy over the new study by John Scanella and Jack Horner in which the paleontologists hypothesized that the dinosaur known as Torosaurus was really the adult stage of the more familiar Triceratops. “Triceratops Never Existed” said the headline from Gizmodo (as did similar ones from CBS News, the National Post, the Baltimore Sun, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Newsoxy), while another one went as far as to ask “Triceratops a Hoax?” In comment sections and on Twitter people have been, well, all a-twitter about the idea that one of their favorite dinosaurs might be taken away—some folks likened the situation to the “demotion” of Pluto via t-shirt designs and others set up Facebook campaigns to “Save the Triceratops.”
All of this angst is unnecessary. As Scanella and Horner pointed out in their paper, and as multiple summaries of the study have stated, Triceratops (described in 1889) was named before Torosaurus (described in 1891). According to the rules by which scientists name organisms, this gives Triceratops priority, so the name “Triceratops” isn’t going anywhere. (TIME got it right, Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs tried to set people straight, and Geekosystem deserves some credit for amending their original post.) What is significant about the new study is that it may change our perception of what an adult Triceratops looked like, but the young-adult dinosaur we have traditionally called Triceratops is just as real as tadpoles, caterpillars, or teenage humans—they are all growth stages within a species. Given the number of Triceratops remains that have been recovered from western North America, there has never been any doubt that it was a real animal, though I am sure that many people are much happier calling it Triceratops rather than Torosaurus.
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Personally, I think it’s kind of fun to know that Triceratops was a teenager.
Worse yet, the Save the Triceratops Facebook group is claiming that their efforts in part saved the name Triceratops, when in face the rules of priority meant that the whole debaucle was a moot point anyway.
Of course, if there is only one species of large ceratopsian in the Hell Creek formation, then that would mean that the former nomen dubium Agathaumas would then become valid once more (if still non-diagnostic) because its remains would have to be from the only large ceratopsian in the formation, Triceratops. And Agauthaumas is the senior synonym of the latter.
Of course, to now illustrate or replicate a triceratops, everyone will have to draw or sculpt the “torosaurus” look instead of the familiar short frilled triceratops that we are familiar with. This will be the “extinction” of triceratops as we have come to know it from books, drawings, movies, museum displays, replica toys and figures, paleoart, etc. — unless those creating such things wish to only reconstruct juvenile triceratops (and how often are subadults represented in the aforemention media?) or risk being nitpicked by people like us that their reconstructions are “incorrect” and “outdated.”
What scientists actually say seems irrelevant to what people get upset about — one is tempted to say that if the astronomers had decided to keep calling Pluto a planet, a Facebook group would have sprung up protesting its demotion!
Maybe you could get an Evolution: Education and Outreach article out of this in a few months’ time . . .
@ jurassiraptor – Its just a dinosaur, get over it.
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Perhaps Triceratops can simply be the juvenile name for a young torosaurus — sort of like kitten vs. cat; different names, but same animal.
Why does Jack horner take so much enjoyment in destroying childhood images of dinosaurs. I can live with those stupid looking quills on ceratospian’s arses and i wouldn’t mind thinking of T-rex as a scavenger who takes opportunity to feed when it feels like it. But at some point you need to stop and think about how a dinosaur would Loose bone for an unnecessarily large frill. How can anyone take Jackass horner seriously after that cluster fuck called Jurassic park 3 he was supposed to be advising on.
Shouldn’t it be Torosaurus never existed. I thought Triceratops was named first.
[...] year 2010 might as well be known as the “Year of the Ceratopsians.” From the Torosaurus = Triceratops debate to peculiar ceratopsian forms found in unexpected places, our understanding of these dinosaurs is [...]
@bryan Isn’t that what happened?
@Sean Get lost and mind your own business if you don’t like it!
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