A few years back, shortly after he introduced me to a splendid fossil alligator, Peabody Museum of Natural History collections manager Christopher Norris led me into a bright room piled high with fossils. I’d seen similar rooms before. As per usual, the larger specimens were cradled in carefully-crafted plaster jackets on shelves while the smaller bones were safely locked in metal cabinets bearing scientific incantations such as “merycoidodontoidea” and “borhyaenidae“. But a series of lumpy skulls arranged along the left wall were what immediately grabbed my attention. These were the great dinoceratans that O.C. Marsh fought so fiercely to defend from his chief rival.

I’m not sure why I’m so taken with Uintatherium and its relatives.