Don't talk about martial arts! The largest triceratops was stabbed by its kind
"Big John" is the name of a triceratops that became famous for fetching a whopping 6.65 million euros, or 49 million yuan, at an auction in 2021. Paleontologists have found incurable wounds while studying the fossils of "Big John", who did this?
The largest Triceratops
When it comes to the dinosaurs of Cretaceous North America, it is easy to think of Triceratops because it has three large horns and a wide head shield on its head. So far, paleontologists and fossil hunters have found a large number of Triceratops fossils, and "Big John" is the most famous of them.
The fossil of "Big John" was found on a farm in South Dakota in May 2014. After excavations, paleontologists found more than 200 fossils, estimating that the Triceratops fossil was more than 60% complete. Paleontologists named the triceratops "John the Great" after the farmer.
Paleontologists are digging up fossils, image from the web
In order to restore "John the Big" to its former appearance, it was shipped to the Zodiac studio in Italy in 2020 and then restored by professionals. After figuring out the location of each fossil, the staff used special materials and glue to fill in the missing parts. After thousands of hours of work, the complete skeleton of "Big John" finally appeared in front of people's eyes, just his huge head length was 2.62 meters, the total length of his body reached 8 meters, and the weight was estimated at 10 tons!
The fossil of "Big John" is being restored, and the image is from the Internet
Image note: "Big John" compared to the human body size, the body size is a bit exaggerated, the picture comes from the network
With an average body length of between 6 and 7 meters and a weight of 5 to 6 tons, John the Great was a very large Triceratops, and that was exactly what happened. Among the more complete Triceratops fossils found so far, "Big John" is the largest!
Illustration: Repaired 'John The Great', picture from the web
The great value of "Big John"
Instead of being sent back to his hometown of the United States, "Big John" was suddenly on the streets of Paris in September 2021! It turned out that the owner of the fossil was going to auction off "Big John". In order to build momentum for the fossil, it was displayed in a shop in the center of Paris, and it took a lot of time just to assemble its fossils.
Photo note: Big John, who is on display in Paris, picture from the internet
Image note: Ribs of "Big John", picture from the internet
As the largest known fossil of a complete Triceratops, auction house staff expect its final price to be between 1.2 million and 1.5 million euros. When the auction officially began on October 22, the bid for "Big John" continued to increase, and finally it was auctioned by an American collector for 6.65 million euros (equivalent to 6.4 million US dollars or 49 million yuan). Although it can't be compared to the $31.84 million Tyrannosaurus Rex "Stan", "Big John" still created his own myth!
Image note: "John the Great" in the shoot, the picture is from the internet
Picture note: The sky-high price of the T-Rex "Stan", the picture comes from the Network
A large hole in the shield of the head
Just when everyone was lamenting that "John the Great" was in a private collection and may not have been able to benefit from scientific research and public display, a research paper on "Big John" was published in the recently published "Scientific Reports" entitled "Histological and Chemical Diagnosis of a Combat Lesion in Triceratops" (Triceratops).
Illustration: Research paper published online, picture from the internet
The paper focuses on describing, studying, and exploring a key-shaped opening located on the right side of the shield of John the Great, which is clearly a traumatic structure. The researchers first collected fossil samples from the edge of the hole, and after electron microscopy observation, found that this part of the bone tissue is more porous, there are more blood vessels, obviously newly grown, that is, the hole is healing. At the same time as healing, plaque-like bone deposits appeared around the hole, which was caused by inflammation caused by wound infection, so this open wound once caused inflammation.
Note: The opening in the head of "Big John", picture from the paper
So was this open wound that caused the death of "John the Great"? Paleontologists did not give a definitive answer, because according to research, this wound appeared six months before John The Great's death, and there was obvious healing after that, so it is likely that "John The Great" died for other reasons.
Illustration Note: Microscopic diagram of bone tissue around the "Big John" opening, picture from the paper
I have been introducing the wound on the shield of "Big John" earlier, so how did this wound come about? The first thing that comes to mind is the bite of the T-Rex. The sharp teeth of the Tyrannosaurus rex were indeed able to bite through the bony head shield of the Triceratops, but their teeth did not match the shape of the opening, so the Tyrannosaurus rex was not the murderer.
Caption: Tyrannosaurus rex that killed Triceratops, image from the Internet
If it wasn't for the T-Rex, then the most likely killer would be of the same kind. As a combative dinosaur, Triceratops often erupted in fierce conflicts, Triceratops would head-to-head, big horns crossed together duels, such heavyweight duels can easily leave wounds. When the researchers studied the opening in the shield of "Big John", they found that normal duels could not cause such wounds, unless the same kind sneaked in from the rear and punctured the head shield of "Big John" with long horns, which really did not talk about martial virtue!!!
Illustration: A reconstruction of John the Great's stabbing, picture from the Internet
The truth of the case was finally revealed, it turned out that the opening in the shield of "Big John" was the same kind of work, I did not expect the struggle between the Triceratops to be so fierce, on the other hand, it also implied that "Big John" was an elderly male Triceratops! Fossils of paleontology are sometimes so magical that you can get a glimpse of a corner of the prehistoric world from the clues.
Image / Network (Intrusion and Deletion)
Text / Jiang's Little Thief Dragon (Jiang Hong)
Typography / Jiang's Little Thief Dragon