Agathaumas
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| Agathaumas
Conservation status: Fossil | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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A. sylversteris |
Agathaumas ("great wonder") was a ceratopsid resembling Triceratops. Relatively little is known about the species, because the only fossils found were the sacrum and pelvis of the dinosaur. We do know, however, that it lived during the Cretaceous period.
Today, most argue that Agathaumas is simply a mislabled Triceratops.
It was given its name, which refers to its great size, by paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope in 1872. It is a nomen dubium, however, and some debate exists to what Agathaumas is. Cope himself originally believed it to be a type of hadrosaur until O. Marsh described Triceratops in 1889.
Artist Charles R. Knight painted the dinosaur for Cope, creating a fantastic-looking beast which blended the long facial horns of Triceratops with the spiked frill of the Styracosaurus. The artwork was discovered years later by stop-motion animator Willis O'Brien, who used the Agathaumas in the 1925 film The Lost World (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0016039/combined). The Agathaumas has appeared in various forms since then, and if those who doubt its existence are correct, it is one of the more successful imaginary dinosaurs.
 | Dinosaur Clipart and Pictures
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