OLogy Cards > Triceratops horridus

Are These Buffalo Horns?
In 1887, before any complete ceratopian skulls had been discovered, paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh received a large package from a geologist in Colorado. It contained two fossilized horns, each about half a meter (2 feet) long. Even though the horns were buried in Cretaceous sandstone, Marsh guessed they came from an extinct bison. So, he named the species Bison alticornis ("high-horned bison"). Two years later, Marsh figured out that the horns actually belonged to a dinosaur that had three horns on its head. So he renamed this fossil Triceratops ("three-horned face").