July 13, 2011
Dinosaur Sighting: Roadside Triceratops
Dinosaur, Colorado's Triceratops. Photo by author.
While spending the week at Utah’s Dinosaur National Monument looking for fossils with the Utah Museum of Natural History field crew, two graduate students and I took one afternoon off to visit nearby Dinosaur, Colorado. The small town has certainly taken dinosaurs as its mascots. In addition to the streets named after dinosaurs—you can travel down Stegosaurus Freeway or amble along “Antrodemus” Alley—the town’s main drag is festooned with a number of goofy-looking dinosaurs, including a strange Triceratops. The sculpture has the standard accoutrements of the famous dinosaur—the three horns and the frill—but the super-long snout, molars and tongue make this playground ornament one creepy Triceratops.
Have you seen a prehistoric creature in an unusual place? Submissions of dinosaurs—and other ancient beasts—should be sent to dinosaursightings@gmail.com.
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The Marvel comics series Dark Avengers had a storyline, beginning with issue #10, where supervillain Molecule Man had transformed his childhood hometown of Dinosaur, Colorado into the ultimate tourist trap – a sort of dimensional anomaly into which passers-by could enter but never leave. The Dark Avengers (unreformed supervillains and a few duped heroes, rebranded as the heroic Avengers) were all mildly amused by the nature of Dinosaur, Colorado – until they fell into the Molecule Man’s trap.
The stance and head of the animal, particularly the long snout, reminds me of another roadside dinosaur, the triceratops in Dinosaur Park in Rapid City, SD. Perhaps one was inspired by the other?