Triceratops

three-horned face

• tri- · Greek · three
• keras · Greek · horn
• ops · Greek · face

The name describes the animal's three facial horns: one short horn on the nose and two long horns above the eyes. It combines Greek words for 'three', 'horn' and 'face'. Marsh named it in 1889 after first describing the fossils in 1887 as a different animal.

Named by

Marsh

Year named

1889

Period

Late Cretaceous

Stage

Maastrichtian

Found in

Western North America, including the Hell Creek Formation (Montana, USA) and the Lance Formation (Wyoming, USA)

A valid ceratopsid genus. The type species is Triceratops horridus. Torosaurus is sometimes argued to be a synonym, but this is debated.