Answer Monday!


Photo Credit: Scott..? via Compfight cc

Last week on Fossil Friday, I introduced you to what I thought would be an easily identified fossil! It's one that everyone knows and most people love, so I tried to make it tricky by supplying as little information as possible. Maybe too little! No one even got close!!

What was this fossil horn? Why, it came from the Ceratopsidae family—the home of the horned and frilly Triceratops and others. From the UCMP:

"The horned, frilled dinosaurs in the family Ceratopsidae are found only in the Late Cretaceous of North America; they are among the last of the dinosaurs (other than the birds of course)."

This one came from Hell Creek, Montana, and dates to the Maastrichtian Stage, "which occurred 72.1 million to 66 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period."

In addition to everything else, I requested the strangest video you could find featuring a member of this family. There were no great contenders, but I found this one featuring battles between a T. rex and a triceratops:

Minda Berbeco
Short Bio

Minda Berbeco is the former Programs and Policy Director at NCSE.