Duck-Billed Dinosaur

Duck-Billed Dinosaur

Diet : Herbivorous

Habitat : North American overflow areas of the river meanders

Length : Up to 29 feet (9 meters)

Weight : up 5,700 lb (2.6 tonnes)

Footprints of Late Cretaceous duck-billed dinosaurs or “hadrosaurs” were named Hadrosauropodus, what means “hadrosaur track”. They are relatively common in the Upper Cretaceous of North America. In Utah, they can be found among the rich material from Blackhawk Formation of Price area. However, these tracks are the isolated casts from the coal mines and have not been described in detail. The most recent find came from Castlegate Sandstone of the Thompson Pass area in Utah and seems to be Hadrosauropodus made by juvenile hadrosaur.

The good example of Hadrosauropus trackmaker is Parasaurolophus from Late Cretaceous of Canada. This name means “near crested lizard” just as Saurolophus means “crested lizard”. It was a herbivorous dinosaur, eating plants. Its skull permitted a grinding motion similar to chewing. Its teeth were continually replacing and packed into dental batteries with hundreds of teeth. It used its duck-billed beak to crop plant material. It was built to walk on all fours as well as on two legs. Parasaurolophus was distinguished by the long, hollow cranial crest, curved structure longer than the rest of skull, which protruded from the rear of the head. The crests of male parasaurophuses were longer the those of females. One current theory is that these tubes might have produced blast of sound, when filled with air.