Parasaurolophus

FACT SHEET: parasaurolophus

NAME: PARASAUROLOPHUS (PAR-ah-SAW-roh-LOH-fus), "Crested Lizard" SIZE: 40 feet long, 16 feet tall (the size of a bus), weighed 2 tons TYPE OF DIET: Herbivore (pine needles, leaves, twigs) WHEN: Late Cretaceous period (70 million years ago) WHERE: New Mexico, Utah (North America), Canada

Parasaurolophus was one of the strangest-looking dinosaurs. A huge, 6 foot-long crest stuck out of its head. Sometimes the males’ crests were even longer. The crest was longer than the dinosaur’s entire skull. Its nostrils went up through the crest and back down, forming four hollow tubes. No one exactly knows what the crest was used for. It probably was able to blow air up through its crest. This would have made a loud noise that could be heard for miles, like a foghorn. This would have been useful to attract a mate. Parasaurolophus belongs to the hadrosaur family of dinosaurs, and it had a snout that looked like a duck’s beak. It lived about 70 million years ago. It grew to be about 40 feet long, which is about the size of a bus. It weighed about two tons. It walked and ran on two legs, and was a pretty fast runner. It probably walked on all fours to look for food, but then ran on two legs when it needed to move quickly. Parasaurolophus could see and hear well. We know this because its skull had large holes for its eyes and ears. It had a large space in its skull for a brain. Parasaurolophus ate mostly pine needles, leaves, and twigs. It had a toothless, hard beak to chomp down tough plants. It could store its food in its cheeks and chew with its grinding teeth at the back of its mouth. Parasaurolophus moved about in a large group. The group spent a lot of its time at the near the water looking for food. When it was time to lay eggs, the group moved away from the water, so that the eggs could be better protected.