A large, late horned dinosaur famous for its three facial horns, broad frill, and powerful four-legged body. It was one of the last great non-avian dinosaurs and is the classic fully developed ceratopsid most people picture when they think of horned dinosaurs. Lived from about 68 to 66 million years ago.

Triceratops came late to the story, living in the last few million years before the great extinction. And the body shape we instantly recognize as a “horned dinosaur” came late too. In paleontology, that overall structural design is often described as a body plan, or morphology. That classic ceratopsian body plan—with a broad frill, facial horns, a deep skull, and a strong four-legged frame—only really emerged during the final 30 million years or so of dinosaur history. It did not appear all at once, but took shape step by step, until animals like Triceratops brought that design to one of its fullest expressions.