Corythosaurus casuarius
Paleobiology Database
Reviewed: 9/4/2026
PBDB taxon page giving the full classification of Corythosaurus casuarius from Dinosauria through Ornithischia, Ornithopoda and Hadrosauridae to Lambeosaurinae.
Open source
Corythosaurus casuarius
Corythosaurus was a large duck-billed dinosaur, roughly 8 to 9.5 metres long and weighing an estimated 2.8 to 4 tonnes. Its trademark was the tall, narrow, semicircular crest that rose above its skull like a helmet — the source of its name.
Corythosaurus
Corythosaurus casuarius
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Weight
2800–4000 kg
Length
8–9.5 m
Diet
Herbivore
Period
Cretaceous
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Corythosaurus next to Tyrannosaurus rex and a human, to the same scale.
Corythosaurus casuarius
Tyrannosaurus rex
2800–4000 kg
8–9.5 m
Cretaceous
Both bipedal and quadrupedal
2–3.2 m
25 km/h
Herbivore
17 recorded fossil finds in Canada and United States. Most in Alberta and Montana. First described in 1914 by Brown.
Sites and counts from the Paleobiology Database
The timeline shows the whole age of dinosaurs – and how much time has passed since. The glowing part is when Corythosaurus lived.
million years ago
Lived 77–75.7 million years ago
If the whole age of dinosaurs were a single day, Corythosaurus lived at 22:40.
Chapter • Meet the dinosaur
Corythosaurus was a large duck-billed dinosaur, roughly 8 to 9.5 metres long and weighing an estimated 2.8 to 4 tonnes. Its trademark was the tall, narrow, semicircular crest that rose above its skull like a helmet — the source of its name. The crest was built from greatly enlarged nasal bones and was hollow, containing long looping air passages that ran up from the nostrils and back down toward the throat. The body was deep-chested and powerfully built, with long hind limbs, shorter but fully weight-bearing forelimbs, and a stiffened tail held clear of the ground. Skin impressions from several specimens show a mosaic of small, irregular scales with no armour, plus a low frill of soft tissue along the back.
Chapter • Where it lived
Corythosaurus lived about 77 to 75.7 million years ago, during the Campanian stage of the Late Cretaceous. Every confirmed specimen comes from the Dinosaur Park Formation of southern Alberta, Canada, above all from Dinosaur Provincial Park, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The setting was a warm, humid coastal plain along the shore of the Western Interior Seaway, crossed by broad rivers, lagoons and swamps and covered in conifer forest, ferns and early flowering plants. Its neighbours included Centrosaurus, Chasmosaurus, Styracosaurus, Parasaurolophus and the tyrannosaurs Gorgosaurus and Daspletosaurus.
Chapter • Family life
170 days
12–20
Chapter • Wild behavior
Diurnal
The name means "helmet lizard", and the species name casuarius refers to the cassowary, a living bird with a similar head crest.
The hollow crest housed air tubes over a metre long; computer models of the passages suggest deep, resonant, trumpet-like calls.
Crest shape changes dramatically with age — juveniles had almost flat skulls, and the crest only ballooned as the animal approached maturity.
Barnum Brown collected two exceptionally complete specimens in 1912 and 1914 with skin impressions preserved across much of the body.
A ship carrying Alberta hadrosaur fossils to England was torpedoed in 1916, and several Corythosaurus specimens still lie on the floor of the Atlantic.
Its jaws held dental batteries with hundreds of tooth positions that ground up tough plants and were replaced continuously throughout life.
One specimen preserved plant debris — conifer needles, twigs and seeds — in the belly region, though palaeontologists now treat such 'stomach contents' cautiously.
Corythosaurus could browse on all fours and shift to a two-legged run when fleeing predators such as Gorgosaurus.
Chapter • Scientific place
Paleobiology Database
Reviewed: 9/4/2026
PBDB taxon page giving the full classification of Corythosaurus casuarius from Dinosauria through Ornithischia, Ornithopoda and Hadrosauridae to Lambeosaurinae.
Open sourcePalaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology (Elsevier)
Reviewed: 9/4/2026
Peer-reviewed study documenting the stratigraphic and geographic occurrence of Corythosaurus and other megaherbivores throughout the Dinosaur Park Formation of southern Alberta.
Open sourceVertebrate Anatomy Morphology Palaeontology (University of Alberta)
Reviewed: 9/4/2026
Peer-reviewed description of the coastal, marginal-marine palaeoenvironment of the Dinosaur Park Formation along the Western Interior Seaway, the setting Corythosaurus inhabited.
Open sourcePLOS ONE
Reviewed: 9/4/2026
Peer-reviewed analysis of feeding apparatus and herbivorous niche partitioning among Dinosaur Park Formation megaherbivores, including the hadrosaurid Corythosaurus.
Open sourceCanadian Journal of Earth Sciences
Reviewed: 9/4/2026
Extinct taxon; conservation status NE
Open sourceThe Anatomical Record (Wiley)
Reviewed: 9/4/2026
Peer-reviewed anatomical description of Corythosaurus providing an authoritative overview of the genus's skeletal and cranial-crest morphology.
Open sourceThe Anatomical Record (Wiley)
Reviewed: 9/4/2026
Peer-reviewed anatomical description of Corythosaurus providing an authoritative overview of the genus's skeletal and cranial-crest morphology.
Open sourceThe Anatomical Record (Wiley)
Reviewed: 9/4/2026
Peer-reviewed anatomical description of Corythosaurus providing an authoritative overview of the genus's skeletal and cranial-crest morphology.
Open sourceThe Anatomical Record (Wiley)
Reviewed: 9/4/2026
Peer-reviewed anatomical description of Corythosaurus providing an authoritative overview of the genus's skeletal and cranial-crest morphology.
Open source