Eventually, the Triceratops comes across a cave in which he enters. This was the main reason he had been travelling, and for a good reason: he needs some minerals for his diet, such as calcium, phosphorus, iron, zinc, and sodium. After travelling through a long chamber, the Triceratops walks into a cavern filled with salt, which covers the rocks like snow. This is what he was looking for; salt is filled with the minerals that he needs. However, breaking off salt from a rock is not as easy as eating bark from a tree. If he uses his beak, it could break off in the process. So how does he do it? The answer comes with his majestic 1 meter long horns. Bending his head down, the Triceratops slowly scrapes chunks of salt off, in which he then picks up with his beak and uses his jaws to chew the salt up. Such caves are known as 'salt scrapes' and most ceratopsians have been known to visit them every week. But its not only the ceratopsians that eat the salt. With a seemingly unlimited amount of salt in the cave, a Triceratops will always be wasteful, mostly leaving crumbs of salt on the ground. This makes other animals come over to the cave to crunch the salt left by the Triceratops. A pattering of feet was heard and a group of Thescelosaurus appear. Unlike most flock animals, which are often lead by a dominant male, these neornithischians are matriarchal, meaning that they are lead by a dominant female. To make things more wackier for them, they are much more aggressive than the males, with competitions for territory being extremely common. This seems to be the case for the dominant Thescelosaurus, who has seemingly been blinded in one eye. Either way, the Triceratops didn't mind the smaller animals; he would simply need to gently shove them aside if they were getting in the way.
Creatures in this chapter: Triceratops (Akida) Thescelosaurus (Dazzle, character by @JigsawNT) The chapter was inspired by Prehistoric Planet.
