TRICERATOPS HORN

Late Cretaceous, Maastrichtian, circa 66–68 million years
Hell Creek Formation, South Dakota, USA
Mounted on a custom brass base
91.5 × 20 cm

When it comes to recognizing the world’s most famous dinosaurs, many agree that second to only T. rex itself is the Triceratops. As suggested by its name, which means ‘three-horned face’, this iconic dinosaur possessed three imposing horns which consisted of two large brow horns and a smaller nasal horn. It had a large bony frill and a powerful four-legged body up to 30 ft (9 m) in length and 10 ft (3 m) in height.

Its enormous stature and horns allowed it to effectively defend itself against predators, most prominently Tyrannosaurus rex. Triceratops and T. rex both lived in what is now North America during the same period, and so these two creatures were significant rivals who would likely often have aggressive, head-on encounters.

Renowned palaeontologist Bob Bakker said of the imagined rivalry between Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops, ‘No match-up between predator and prey has ever been more dramatic. It’s somehow fitting that those two massive antagonists lived out their co-evolutionary belligerence through the very last days of the very last epoch of the Age of Dinosaurs’.

This brow horn of a Triceratops is near-complete and excellently preserved. Its rugged texture and semi-compressed portions are the result of the geological conditions that naturally altered its original shape.