Olorotitan arharensis
Olorotitan was a large duck-billed dinosaur (hadrosaurid) with one of the most striking head ornaments of any plant-eating dinosaur. A hollow, fan- or hatchet-shaped bony crest rose from the top of its skull and swept backwards well beyond the neck.
Olorotitan
Olorotitan arharensis
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Weight
2700–4000 kg
Length
8–12 m
Diet
Herbivore
Period
Cretaceous
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2700–4000 kg
8–12 m
Cretaceous
Both bipedal and quadrupedal
2.5–4 m
25 km/h
Herbivore
One recorded fossil find, in Russia. First described in 2003 by Godefroit et al..
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 Olorotitan lived.
million years ago
Lived 72.1–66 million years ago
If the whole age of dinosaurs were a single day, Olorotitan lived at 23:36.
Chapter • Meet the dinosaur
Olorotitan was a large duck-billed dinosaur (hadrosaurid) with one of the most striking head ornaments of any plant-eating dinosaur. A hollow, fan- or hatchet-shaped bony crest rose from the top of its skull and swept backwards well beyond the neck. The animal reached roughly 8–12 metres in length and is estimated to have weighed between 2,700 and 4,000 kilograms. Its neck was unusually long and slender, which inspired the name, meaning something like "giant swan". The hips were remarkable too: Olorotitan had eighteen fused sacral vertebrae, more than any other known hadrosaurid, stiffening the back above the pelvis. Like most hadrosaurids, Olorotitan could move on all fours and also rear up on its hind legs, whether to reach higher vegetation or to move away quickly. The crest was hollow and connected to the nasal passages, and in close relatives such as Corythosaurus and Parasaurolophus such crests are interpreted as resonating chambers for calls as well as visual signals for species recognition and social display. That suggests Olorotitan led a social life in which sound and sight mattered a great deal. Its food consisted of low- and mid-level vegetation: conifer foliage, twigs, ferns, horsetails and the flowering plants that were spreading through the Late Cretaceous world. Hundreds of tightly packed teeth formed grinding dental batteries that could pulp even tough plant matter, with replacement teeth constantly erupting from below. The species was described in 2003 by Pascal Godefroit and colleagues from a nearly complete skeleton found at the Kundur locality in the Arkhara District of the Amur Region, in the Russian Far East. The specimen comes from the Udurchukan Formation and counts among the most complete hadrosaurid skeletons ever recovered outside North America. The species name arharensis refers to Arkhara.
Chapter • Where it lived
Olorotitan lived during the Maastrichtian, the final age of the Late Cretaceous, roughly 70.6–66 million years ago. Its fossils come from the Udurchukan Formation at the Kundur locality in the Arkhara District, Amur Region, Russian Far East. The setting was a humid, low-lying floodplain crossed by meandering rivers, with wetlands and forests of conifers, ferns and early flowering plants, shared with other hadrosaurids such as Amurosaurus and Kerberosaurus.
Chapter • Wild behavior
Diurnal
Direct evidence of herding in Olorotitan itself is lacking, but its hollow crest most likely worked as a resonating chamber for calls and as a visual signal, as in other lambeosaurines. In closely related species, bonebeds containing many individuals point to group living, and the Kundur site has yielded large quantities of hadrosaurid bone. This makes it plausible that Olorotitan moved in groups that used sound and visual cues to stay together and recognise their own kind – but this remains an interpretation rather than proof.
The name means roughly "giant swan", a nod to its long, slender neck.
Its head crest was hollow and shaped like a fan or a hatchet.
Olorotitan had eighteen sacral vertebrae – more than any other known duck-billed dinosaur.
The holotype is a nearly complete skeleton, a rarity for hadrosaurids outside North America.
Its jaws held hundreds of teeth in dental batteries that were replaced throughout life.
It lived at the very end of the Cretaceous, among the last dinosaurs before the extinction 66 million years ago.
The fossils come from the Amur Region of the Russian Far East, close to the Chinese border.
It could probably walk on four legs and rise onto two when needed.
Chapter • Scientific place
Paleobiology Database
Reviewed: 9/8/2026
Database taxon page compiling the recorded fossil occurrences, geographic localities and stratigraphic (Maastrichtian) range of the species.
Open sourcewww.britannica.com
Reviewed: 9/8/2026
VERIFY:period_start_mya: stored=70.6 suggested=72.1 confidence=medium — The stored 70.6 Ma reflects the superseded pre-2008 base of the Maastrichtian; current chronostratigraphy places the stage at <cite index="27-1">72.1 million to 66 million years ago</cite>. The Udurchukan Formation that yields Olorotitan is dated to the Maastrichtian as a whole, i.e. roughly 72–66 Ma.
Open sourceComptes Rendus Palevol (Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Paris)
Reviewed: 9/8/2026
Original 2003 description by Godefroit, Bolotsky & Alifanov naming Olorotitan arharensis and establishing its placement within Hadrosauridae (Lambeosaurinae).
Open sourceGeological Magazine (Cambridge University Press)
Reviewed: 9/8/2026
Documents the alluvial 'gravel-meandering' floodplain and wetland palaeoenvironment and associated flora of the Kundur section that yielded Olorotitan.
Open sourceActa Palaeontologica Polonica
Reviewed: 9/8/2026
Detailed osteological description including the maxillary and dentary dental batteries and jaw anatomy characteristic of this herbivorous, plant-grinding hadrosaurid.
Open sourcePLOS ONE
Reviewed: 9/8/2026
Extinct taxon; conservation status NE
Open sourceActa Palaeontologica Polonica
Reviewed: 9/8/2026
Open-access monographic overview of the most complete Russian dinosaur skeleton, covering its helmet-like crest, 18-vertebra neck, proportions and phylogenetic position among Corythosaurini.
Open sourceActa Palaeontologica Polonica
Reviewed: 9/8/2026
Open-access monographic overview of the most complete Russian dinosaur skeleton, covering its helmet-like crest, 18-vertebra neck, proportions and phylogenetic position among Corythosaurini.
Open sourceActa Palaeontologica Polonica
Reviewed: 9/8/2026
Open-access monographic overview of the most complete Russian dinosaur skeleton, covering its helmet-like crest, 18-vertebra neck, proportions and phylogenetic position among Corythosaurini.
Open sourceActa Palaeontologica Polonica
Reviewed: 9/8/2026
Open-access monographic overview of the most complete Russian dinosaur skeleton, covering its helmet-like crest, 18-vertebra neck, proportions and phylogenetic position among Corythosaurini.
Open source