Published: March 4, 2024

On Jan. 16, the day students returned from winter break, the CU Museum of Natural History unveiled a full-scale Triceratops skeleton in the lobby of the Sustainability, Energy and Environment Community (SEEC) building on CU 麻豆影院鈥檚 East Campus. The dinosaur is a skeletal reconstruction cast from the bones of several Triceratops that once roamed the West. The free exhibit is open to the public.聽

The Smithsonian Museum delivered the disassembled skeleton via truck to 麻豆影院 in 2022. A crew put it back together off-site before bringing it to its current SEEC location.聽

鈥淓verybody knows about Triceratops,鈥 said Karen Chin, geological sciences professor and the museum鈥檚 paleontology curator. 鈥淏ut it鈥檚 not common in museums to see the whole animal. To see the scale of this dinosaur, and such a weird dinosaur, is very exciting.鈥澛

CU's Triceratops

dinosaur footprintThe first complete dinosaur skeleton displayed by the CU Museum of Natural History

dinosaur footprintHigh-resolution cast made of plaster, fiberglass and foam聽

dinosaur footprint22 feet long and 9 feet tall

dinosaur footprintCast from the bones of several partial Triceratops specimens found in the late 1800s

More about the Triceratops

12,000

pounds

Roamed the West from Colorado to Canada during the Cretaceous Period

30

Feet long

Had birdlike beaks to clip vegetation

Had teeth for grinding plants and trees

1887

The year a Colorado school teacher unearthed the first documented Triceratops fossils near Denver

Horns were most likely used for fighting among male Triceratops

100s

of teeth

The climate was warmer and more humid than today. Palms, flowering plants and ferns flourished.

66-68 million years ago

When the triceratops roamed the earth

Turtles, crocodiles and small nocturnal animals thrived in the environment.

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Photo by Casey A. Cass, illustrations by iStock