Australia's largest museum will soon be home to one of the most intact and finely preserved Triceratops fossils in the world.

 

Museum Victoria announced Wednesday a 67-million-year-old triceratops skeleton at 87 percent complete will go on display in Melbourne Museum from 2021.

 

The fossil, weighing more than 1,000 kilograms, includes skin impressions, tendons, a full spine and a near complete skull. Measuring six to seven meters long and more than two meters tall, it is larger than a full-grown African elephant.

 

"This is among the most globally significant dinosaur discoveries ever made and the most complete dinosaur fossil ever acquired by an Australasian museum," Museums Victoria CEO Lynley Crosswell said.

 

"We know our Triceratops will delight and amaze audiences and inspire us to consider the remarkable wonder and fragility of life on Earth."

 

Museums Victoria's senior curator of palaeontology Dr. Erich Fitzgerald said the exceptional quality of this skeleton may shed light on the anatomy and palaeobiology of Triceratops.

 

"This is the Rosetta Stone for understanding Triceratops," Fitzgerald said.

 

"This fossil comprises hundreds of bones including a complete skull and the entire vertebral column which will help us unlock mysteries about how this species lived 67 million years ago."