Torosaurus facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Torosaurus Temporal range: Upper Cretaceous
Mounted Torosaurus in Milwaukee
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Class:	Sauropsida
Superorder:	Dinosauria
Order:	Ornithischia
Suborder:	Cerapoda
Infraorder:	Ceratopsia
Family:	Ceratopsidae
Subfamily:	Ceratopsinae
Genus:	Torosaurus Marsh, 1891

Torosaurus (meaning "pierced lizard") was a large, quadrupedal, plant-eating Ceratopsian dinosaur with three horns on its large head. Torosaurus hatched from eggs and may have lived in herds.

Torosaurus lived during the Upper Cretaceous, about 70–65 million years ago, in what is now western North America. It was similar to Triceratops. Some had thought that Triceratops was a younger form of Torosaurus.

However, latest thinking is that the two are definitely different genera. In 2011, 2012 and 2013, studies of external features of known specimens decided that shape and development differences mean the two genera are not synonyms. The main problems in the "one genus" idea are:

1. A lack of good transitional forms,
2. The apparent existence of authentic Torosaurus subadults, different skull proportions independent of maturation
3. The hole formation at an adult stage is not part of a normal ceratopsian growth sequence.

Images for kids

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  Marsh's original illustrations of the skulls of T. latus and its synonym T. gladius

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  Restoration of T. latus

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  Specimen MOR 1122

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  Specimen ANSP 15192 might, according to Longrich, be a young female adult

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  Scanella & Horner saw Nedoceratops as an ontogenetic transitional form between Triceratops and Torosaurus

See also

In Spanish: Torosaurus para niños