Parasaurolophus
par-ah-sawr-OLL-oh-fuss
Parasaurolophus is an herbivorous hadrosaurid native to North America, and is famed for its unique head crest, which extends out from the back of its head. This distinctive crest gave the dinosaur its name, which translates to ‘near crested lizard’. Parasaurolophus grows up to around 7.5m in length, and while it usually walks on four legs, it can rear up onto two legs if it needs to run or reach food in high places.
Discovery
The first Parasaurolophus discovery came in 1920, when a team of paleontologists led by William Parks discovered a skull and an incomplete skeleton in Alberta, Canada. Another partial skull was unearthed in New Mexico the following year, and over the next 100 years many more specimens have been unearthed and attributed to Parasaurolophus.
Palaeoecology
The remains of Parasaurolophus have been found across the western United States, Canada and even as far away as Asia. The genus dates back around 75m years to the Late Cretaceous period, when the climate was seasonal but warm, and lived along rivers and near floodplains and swamps, alongside other dinosaurs including Centrosaurus, Styracosaurus and Euoplocephalus.
Information
- Era
- Late Cretaceous
- Family
- Hadrosauridae
- Genus
- Parasaurolophus
- Height
- 3M
- Length
- 7.5M
- Weight
- 2.6T
- Diet
- Ground Paleobotany
- Egg batch size
- 2 - 5
