Triceratops

Name meaning: "three-horned face"

Height: 9.5-9.8 feet (about 3 meters)

Length: 29.5 feet (9 meters)

Habitat: North America, specifically the US

Time Period: the last 3 million years of the Cretaceous Period

Diet:

Like the modern-day rhinoceros, Triceratops probably spent most of its time grazing on low-level plant matter within easy reach of its beak. As elephants and other large herbivores show, being big has a downside: to survive, it needs to consume more, making all this time eating a must.

Defenses:

Triceratops was armed with 3 horns (hence the name): 2 just above its eyes and one on its nose. For defense, it had a bony frill at the back of its skull that would defend it from most frontal assaults. It probably used these to defend itself from Tyrannosaurus Rex, which we know preyed upon these dinosaurs, because teeth marks have been found in the frills and pelvises of Triceratops skeletons that match up with the jaws of a Tyrannosaurus. However, the inverse - a Tyrannosaurus skeleton with horn wounds from a Triceratops - still hasn't been found, leading scientists to believe that Tyrannosaurus would only have attacked the weaker members of the species that couldn't defend themselves as well, such as the old and injured. Furthermore, a paleontologist named Denver Fowler, of the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana, examined the bite marks on Triceratops frills and reconstructed that Tyrannosaurus would have used the frill as leverage to pull the skull away from the body to gain access to the neck meat. In spite of this, Triceratops horns were found that grew back after getting bitten off, showing that some Triceratops managed to survive encounters. Also, scientists have found Triceratops horn wounds in members of its own species, leading experts to believe they fought each other for mating rights like some modern herbivores.

Social Life: Triceratops skeletons have not been found close together in groups, unlike other horned dinosaurs, so besides offspring, it probably spent most of its time alone.