About This Project

The Missouri Institute of Natural Science [501 (c)(3)] is in the beginning phase of preparing and mounting a Triceratops. As part of the restoration process the lab team will be looking for any clues specific to Henry's life and death in what is now Eastern Wyoming. When complete, Henry will be the centerpiece of the museum's expansion and the first mounted dinosaur of fossilized bone in the state of Missouri. But, to make this happen we need the materials. That's where we need your support.

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

The MINS was founded to support a recently unsealed Pleistocene (Ice Age) cave discovered in 2001. In 2009 a museum opened on location to showcase the cave's discoveries and a collection of fossils spanning the geological time scale. Then, and now, MINS has been staffed entirely by volunteers, including the director.

MINS volunteer staff excavated Henry from the Lance Creek Formation of eastern Wyoming in June of 2013 and again in June of 2014. The Lance formation is of Late Cretaceous age (69-66 Ma) at a time in Earth history when a shallow sea split the United States into two separate bodies, Laramidia in the west and Appalachia in the east. The Lance Formation was laid down by streams spilling into this sea from Laramidia's eastern shore creating a rich subtroptropical environment.

What is the significance of this project?

We will be paying close attention to Henry's dimensions. He may prove to be the largest fossilized remains of a Triceratops currently known.

We also want to provide museum visitors a mounted dinosaur with a complete story, so we will be looking for pathologies, taphonomic processes (the process of decay, burial and fossilization) and evidence of contemporary flora as well.

Our intent is to off-set Hollywood science with facts and offer quality science to Missourians. Bringing a dinosaur into an informational setting would allow people of all ages to consider a scientific approach to understanding the nature of life's development on earth. We can bring them a real fossilized dinosaur. The first and only in the state. But, this can't be done without the needed materials.

What are the goals of the project?

Ultimately, we want to do the best science possible and make the most of resources available to us, with the intent to add to the growing body of knowledge about horned dinosaurs. We want to add directly to the scientific world.

We also want to add indirectly. The Missouri Institute of Natural Science wants to open minds and educate people in a region of the US where there is less understanding of science as a discipline, and science is under-appreciated as a means to make sense of the world we live in.