Lambeosaurus

Chapter • Meet the dinosaur

Overview

Lambeosaurus lambei was a large duck-billed dinosaur (hadrosaurid) that reached roughly 7.5–9.5 metres in length and weighed an estimated 2.5–5.5 tonnes. Its trademark was the hollow bony crest on its head, shaped rather like a hatchet, with a solid bony spike projecting backwards over the neck. The body was heavily built, with a deep, muscular tail carried horizontally off the ground rather than dragging behind. The forelimbs were short but sturdy, ending in hoof-like fingers, while the hind limbs were long and powerful. Skin impressions from hadrosaurids show a mosaic of small, non-overlapping pebbly scales. Lambeosaurus most likely walked and browsed on all fours, rising onto its hind legs to run or to reach higher foliage. The chambers inside the crest carried the nasal passages on a long detour before the air reached the throat, and acoustic models suggest this worked as a resonating chamber producing deep, foghorn-like calls. Because crest shape differed between species, between sexes and between juveniles and adults, it almost certainly doubled as a visual badge for species recognition and social display. Bonebeds of closely related hadrosaurids point to herd living, with animals of different ages travelling together. As a plant eater, Lambeosaurus possessed one of the most sophisticated chewing systems ever evolved by a land animal. Hundreds of tightly packed teeth formed dental batteries that continuously replaced themselves as they wore down. The broad, toothless beak cropped conifer needles, twigs, ferns and leaves, which were then ground to pulp by the batteries. Wear facets show that the upper jaws flexed slightly outwards as the animal chewed, producing a genuine grinding motion. The first remains were collected along the Red Deer River in Alberta, Canada, by the Canadian palaeontologist Lawrence Lambe in the early 1900s. William Parks named the genus and species in 1923, honouring Lambe in both parts of the name. Later work on the rich material from the Dinosaur Park Formation showed that several separately named skulls were in fact juveniles or sexual variants of the same animal. A species once called Lambeosaurus laticaudus has since been moved to its own genus, Magnapaulia.

Chapter • Where it lived

Habitat

Lambeosaurus lambei lived about 76.5–75 million years ago, during the Campanian stage of the Late Cretaceous. Its fossils come almost entirely from the Dinosaur Park Formation of southern Alberta, Canada, with additional material reported from Montana in the United States. The setting was a lush, low-lying coastal plain on the western shore of the Western Interior Seaway, crossed by broad rivers, ponds and swamps and covered in conifers, ferns, palm-like plants and early flowering plants. The climate was warm and humid with pronounced wet and dry seasons, and the layered bonebeds of Dinosaur Provincial Park – now a UNESCO World Heritage Site – preserve one of the richest dinosaur communities ever found.

Chapter • Family life

Breeding

Chapter • Wild behavior

Behavior & Ecology

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Chapter • Scientific place

Taxonomy