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Triceratops Musculature/Locomotion

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Adrian Boeye

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Jan 31, 2025, 1:45:39 PMJan 31
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Hi all, the request is similar to a previous thread, but is there material on Triceratops  musculature again looking for stuff with PCSA, but if that is not  available a good osteology would be very helpful to just do the reconstructions. If there is material on gait and posture as well that might be useful. Thanks for any help and assistance.

Best,
Adrian

Heinrich Mallison

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Jan 31, 2025, 1:54:38 PMJan 31
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Adrian,
Maybe ask Melbourne for the low res 3D data of their trike skeleton? It has the huge advantage of being a complete individual, i.e. all proportions are correct. Contact is curator Erich Fitzgerald.

Erich Fitzgerald <efitz...@museum.vic.gov.au>

Best
Heineich

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Adrian Boeye

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Jan 31, 2025, 4:54:11 PMJan 31
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I never realized they had a complete skeleton, that is actually a huge break. Thanks for the heads up! I am writing an email now to see what may be feasible.

Best,
Adrian

Heinrich Mallison

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Jan 31, 2025, 5:03:58 PMJan 31
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I saw it in the field: articulated snout to tortious and tailtip! By far the best specimen.

Gregory Paul

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Jan 31, 2025, 5:31:45 PMJan 31
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That is a T. horridus from low in the formations. Not entirely sure how complete it is, but any fill ins are likely to be good. 

The placement of the shoulder girdle is reasonable, with the shoulder joint ahead of the first long dorsal ribs so the broad humerus head does not smash into them. The coracoids are about the right midline distance from one another. The placement of the sternals if not quite right, they would meet on the midline anteriorly and then splay out some posteriorly. The chest ribs are correctly swept backwards. The ribcage is much too broad. Triceratops does not have a particularly broad pelvis, and abdominal ribs are not splayed much more broadly than the anterior ilia. As Osborn showed, the anterior tip of the prepubic process directly articulated with the first long poterior rib, and those immediately ahead flared out only a little more. The chest ribs are also much too broad, quadrupeds have narrow shoulders that the scapula-coracoid can fit onto and work against. The bracing of the belly ribs with the prepubis and one another in ceratopsians, and ossified ligaments, indicate the ribcage was rigid so the strong curve in dorsal view is improbable, the ball and socket head neck joint indicates most mobility was there. The overall articulation of the vertebrae in side view is good, although the tail would not be quite as downswept, there needs to be a little more room between the first chevrons and ischia. The pose of the legs, with rhino like flexed shoulder, elbow, hip, knee and ankle is correct for this running beast. The fingers are splayed out too much, the metacarpals would form a tighter subvertical arcade. 

Check out http://gspauldino.com/Forelimb.pdf for more on the above, etc. 

GSPaul

Adrian Boeye

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Feb 2, 2025, 3:15:08 PMFeb 2
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Apologies for the slower response than intended, past few days have been chaotic. I have an email scheduled to send to Dr. Fitzgerald tomorrow morning and I did some looking into the horridus specimen- indeed that is a gorgeous specimen. I also did some looking around online and saw the website had a pretty nice 3d scan of the specimen, not high enough resolution for detailed muscle reconstruction, but still useful.

I'm still working my way through the sent paper, but I am reading about the potential for galloping or some kind of fast running. One questions that would be useful to get confirmation on, given the ossified ligaments/tendons, is it safe to say that the spinal column was remaining fair rigid during the gait cycle? This will go directly into whatever model is produced so being certain is fairly important.

Best,
Adrian

Gregory Paul

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Feb 2, 2025, 3:27:03 PMFeb 2
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Triceratops did not gallop. As animals increase in size the speed at which animals switch from a trot to a gallop goes up. At the size of Triceratops the T/G transition is so high that even if it was running as fast as a galloping rhino it would be fast trotting (or maybe pacing). Also, the rigid dorsal series and ribcages of ceratopsids suggest they did not gallop, which probably requires considerable dorso-ventral flexion of the dorsals, which rhinos being running mammals can do (same for galloping crocodilians). This is discussed the papers I did with Per Christiansen around the turn of the century. 

Having flexed limbs with tremendous muscle power anchored on the huge pelvis, and a long foot with a roller ankle to push off into a suspended phase, Triceratops would have been much faster than a similar sized elephant which cannot even reach a slow trot.  

GSPaul

Adrian Boeye

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Feb 2, 2025, 8:40:37 PMFeb 2
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Gotcha, I may have just misread the paper. Either way thank you for the clarification.

The limb posture is definitely interesting, will be interesting to see some what energy is at play in the overall motion of the animal. Thank you again for your time and assistance.

Best,
Adrian
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