Parasaurolophus

“Familiar of the Crested Lizard”

Parasaurolophus was a duck-billed dinosaur with an extremely long, backward-sloping bony crest. This was hollow and as big as the rest of his skull. Researchers believe that this was used to produce a foghorn-like sound in low frequencies.

Parasaurolophus was a herbivore that ate pine needles, leaves, and twigs. Fossilized stomach contents were found, consisting mostly of land plants.

Like other duck-billed dinosaurs, Parasaurolophus probably migrated in herds.

In 2009 the student was digging Kevin Terris a young (about 1 year old) Parasaurolophus in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, southern Utah. He named the specimen “Joe.”

Interestingly, he only found a small bump on Joe's head. Terris suspects that it only developed into the curved tube of adults as it continued to grow.

Did Parasaurolophus dive like a duck?

It was previously assumed that the long crest of Parasaurolophus was a kind of snorkel and was used to breathe when it browsed aquatic plants. But this idea didn't hold up because although the comb looks like a snorkel, the tip is completely solid and has no opening.

A later discovery of the forepaw tracks of duck-billed dinosaurs definitively demonstrated that Parasaurolophus did not have webbed feet. In fact, in some ways the exact opposite seems to be the case. The extra flesh on their front extremities did not form webbed skin, but rather a large pad of padding, like those found on the feet of camels.

Image sources: Leandra Walters, Phil Senter, James H. Robins, CC BY 2.5 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

Size comparison: Jam, CC BY-SA 2.5 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

Skeleton: Scott Hartman ([1]), CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons