Triceratops skull. Seishiro Tada (left) standing next to an awe-inspiring Triceratops skull, with its enormous nasal cavity visible at the front.
©2026 Tada CC-BY-ND
Once upon a time, in that ancient world during the 99.975% of Earth’s history that elapsed before creationism’s small god supposedly conceived the idea of creating a small flat plane with a dome over it in the Middle East, there lived a dinosaur that had evolved a horned head and a wide protective frill to shield its vulnerable neck from the jaws of the large predators that ruled the land some 100 million years ago. Carrying those horns and that protective neck shield required a large head — and a large head is difficult to keep cool.
The solution, according to researcher Seishiro Tada of the University of Tokyo Museum, was a large nasal cavity containing turbinate bones to mix incoming air, together with a plentiful blood supply to dissipate excess heat. Tada and colleagues from various Japanese research institutions have recently published their findings in The Anatomical Record.
This is not a fairy story, but what palaeontology is revealing.
From an evolutionary perspective, this research shows that Triceratops was the product of a long evolutionary process in which predation drove the development of large defensive structures, which in turn created new physiological challenges — in this case, the risk of overheating. Those challenges then drove further evolutionary adaptations. In other words, the solution to one problem generated another problem to be solved, all as part of a predator–prey arms race. This dynamic makes no sense as the work of an intelligent designer, but it is precisely what evolutionary theory predicts.
The Evolution of Triceratops.The work of the Tokyo University–led team is also the subject of a University of Tokyo press release.A Late Arrival in a Long Lineage
Skull of Triceratops
Although Triceratops is one of the most recognisable dinosaurs, it was actually a relatively late member of a much older evolutionary lineage — the ceratopsians (“horned faces”). This group flourished during the Cretaceous period and shows a clear sequence of gradual anatomical change over tens of millions of years.
From Small Bipeds to Giant Quadrupeds
- Early ceratopsians (e.g. Psittacosaurus)
- Lived ~125–100 million years ago
- Small, often bipedal herbivores
- Possessed a beaked mouth but no large frill or horns
- Intermediate forms (e.g. Centrosaurus)
- Large quadrupedal herbivores
- Developed expanded neck frills
- Exhibited a variety of horn shapes and ornamentation
- Late ceratopsids (e.g. Triceratops)
- Lived ~68–66 million years ago
- Massive skull (up to 2.5 metres long)
- Three prominent facial horns
- Solid, broad frill protecting the neck
What Drove the Changes?
Several evolutionary pressures likely shaped ceratopsian anatomy:
- Predation pressure from large theropods such as Tyrannosaurus
- Sexual selection**, with horns and frills acting as display structures
- Species recognition, helping distinguish closely related forms
- Thermoregulation, as suggested by recent research on nasal structures
Importantly, frills and horns show enormous diversity across related species — precisely what we would expect from gradual evolutionary modification rather than single-step “design”.
A Snapshot at the End of the Age of Dinosaurs
Triceratops lived in western North America at the very end of the Cretaceous, disappearing in the mass extinction 66 million years ago. Far from appearing suddenly, it represents the culmination of a long evolutionary trajectory — one that is richly documented in the fossil record.
The progression from small, lightly built ancestors to the massive, heavily ornamented Triceratops skull provides a textbook example of how complex structures accumulate step by step over deep time.
Why Triceratops has such a big nose
First comprehensive hypothesis on soft tissue in Triceratops reveals some nosy secrets
Triceratops and similar horned dinosaurs had unusually large nasal cavities compared to most animals. Researchers including those from the University of Tokyo used CT scans of fossilized Triceratops skulls and compared their structures with modern animals like birds and crocodiles. Through direct observation and inference, researchers reconstructed how nerves, blood vessels and structures for airflow fit together in the skulls. They concluded horned dinosaurs probably used their noses not just for smelling but also to help control temperature and moisture.
If you spot a Triceratops in the wild, it may raise a question or two: firstly, "Aren't they extinct?” and secondly, “Why does it have such an enormous head?" Project Research Associate Seishiro Tada from the University of Tokyo Museum wondered about the latter while looking at a specimen (a fossilized one).
I have been working on the evolution of reptilian heads and noses since my master's degree. Triceratops in particular had a very large and unusual nose, and I couldn’t figure out how the organs fit within it even though I remember the basic patterns of reptiles. That made me interested in their nasal anatomy and its function and evolution.
Seishiro Tada, lead author
The University Museum
The University of Tokyo
Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan.
Dinosaurs exhibited a wide range of skull types contributing to their visual diversity, which is part of their appeal. Horned dinosaurs, or Ceratopsia, had some of the more elaborate skulls, with Triceratops’ being iconic and instantly recognizable. But due to its relative uniqueness, the internal anatomy of Triceratops skulls is also poorly understood. So, Tada and his team set out to explore the internal soft tissues using the tools at their disposal.
Nasal structures of ceratopsid dinosaurs. Various other dinosaurs related to Triceratops show a similar range of features that led the researchers to their conclusion.©2026 Seishiro Tada et al. CC-BY-ND.
Employing X-ray-based CT-scan data of a Triceratops, as well as knowledge on contemporary reptilian snout morphology, we found some unique characteristics in the nose and provide the first comprehensive hypothesis on the soft-tissue anatomy in horned dinosaurs. Triceratops had unusual ‘wiring’ in their noses. In most reptiles, nerves and blood vessels reach the nostrils from the jaw and the nose. But in Triceratops, the skull shape blocks the jaw route, so nerves and vessels take the nasal branch. Essentially, Triceratops tissues evolved this way to support its big nose. I came to realize this while piecing together some 3D-printed Triceratops skull pieces like a puzzle.
Seishiro Tada.
Although we’re not 100% sure Triceratops had a respiratory turbinate, as most other dinosaurs don’t have evidence for them, some birds have an attachment base (ridge) for the respiratory turbinate and horned dinosaurs have a similar ridge at the similar location in their nose as well. That’s why we conclude they have the respiratory turbinate as birds do. Horned dinosaurs were the last group to have soft tissues from their heads subject to our kind of investigation, so our research has filled the final piece of that dinosaur-shaped puzzle. Next, I would like to tackle questions around the anatomy and function of other regions of their skulls like their characteristic frills.
Seishiro Tada.
The researchers also found a special structure in Triceratops’ nose called a respiratory turbinate, which almost no other dinosaurs are known to possess, though their living descendants, the birds, do, as do mammals. These structures are thin, curled surfaces within the nose that increase the surface area for blood and air to exchange heat. Triceratops probably wasn’t fully warm-blooded, but the researchers think these structures helped keep temperature and moisture levels under control as its large skull would be difficult to cool down otherwise.
Publication:
Triceratops nasal cavity. Illustration of researchers’ hypothesized layout for the inside of Triceratops nasal cavity.©2026 K. Sakane CC-BY-ND
What this research adds to the picture is another layer of functional detail. The horns and frill were not isolated features, dropped into existence fully formed; they carried physiological consequences. A massive skull alters airflow, blood flow, heat exchange and metabolic demands. Those consequences, in turn, required further anatomical refinement. Evolution is not a sequence of perfect blueprints but a cascade of trade-offs, each modification creating new constraints that must themselves be negotiated.
Seen in that light, Triceratops is not a monument to static design but a record of accumulated compromises shaped by ecological pressure. Predators drove the enlargement of defensive structures; those enlargements generated thermoregulatory challenges; nasal architecture and vascular adaptations evolved to meet them. It is an iterative, contingent process — precisely the kind of feedback-driven dynamic predicted by evolutionary biology.
And once again, the fossil record and comparative anatomy align seamlessly with that prediction. The deeper we look, the less we find evidence of sudden manufacture, and the more we uncover a long history of incremental change stretching back tens of millions of years — long before any Bronze Age cosmology imagined a small world under a dome.
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