Hypacrosaurus
Hypacrosaurus (meaning "almost the largest lizard") was a large, plant-eating, hollow-crested duck-billed dinosaur similar to Corythosaurus.
| Hypacrosaurus Temporal range: Upper Cretaceous 75–67 mya
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| Genus: | Hypacrosaurus Brown, 1913
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The adults were about 30 feet (9 m) long. Their teeth were continually replacing, and packed into dental batteries that contained hundreds of teeth. Only a relative handful of teeth were in use at any one time. They had a short toothless beak.
A row of long spines from their vertebrae formed a high fin along the back. The fossils are dated as 75 to 67 million years ago.
Remains have been found of two species in the Upper Cretaceous of Alberta, Canada, and Montana, United States. It is the latest hollow-crested duckbill known from good remains in North America. In the 1990s nests, eggs, and hatchlings of one of the species was found.[1]
Hypacrosaurus Media
H. altispinus skull and neck
H. stebingeri holotype skull
Size comparison between the two species and a human
Life restoration of H. altispinus
Skeletal mount of H. altispinus at Canadian Museum of Nature
Hindfoot of H. altispinus
H. altispinus skull, AMNH
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Hypacrosaurus MOR 548 supraoccipital with microscopic magnification showing the preserved chondrocyte-like structures, in comparison to those of an emu
Restoration of H. altispinus in environment
References
- ↑ Horner, John R.; Currie, Phillip J. (1994). "Embryonic and neonatal morphology and ontogeny of a new species of Hypacrosaurus (Ornithischia, Lambeosauridae) from Montana and Alberta". In Carpenter, Kenneth; Hirsch, Karl F.; Horner John R. (eds.). Dinosaur Eggs and Babies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 312–336. ISBN 0-521-56723-8.