Maiasaura

Maiasaura was a large, plant-eating, duck-billed dinosaur. Maiasaura was the first dinosaur which was found alongside its young, eggs, and nests. This suggests that Maiasaura nurtured its young.

Maiasaura Temporal range: Upper Cretaceous
File:Maia Hadrosauriër 28-12-2007 15-11-57.jpg
Maiasaura skeleton
Conservation status
Fossil
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Sauropsida
Superorder:	Dinosauria
Order:	Ornithischia
Suborder:	Cerapoda
Infraorder:	Ornithopoda
Family:	Hadrosauridae
Subfamily:	Hadrosaurinae
Genus:	Maiasaura
Binomial name
Maiasaura peeblesorum Horner & Makela, 1979

About Maiasaura

Maiasaura lived about 80 to 65 million years ago in the Upper Cretaceous period. It ate plants, leaves and berries. Its name Maiasaura means “Good Mother Lizard”. The name refers to the find of nests with eggs, embryos and young animals, in a nesting colony. These showed that Maiasaura fed its young while they were in the nest. It was the first time such evidence was got for a dinosaur.

Fully grown Maiasaura measured about 9 metres long, 2-2.5 metres tall and weighed around 1800 kg.

Where they lived

Maiasaursa fossils have been found in Montana, United States, and Alberta, Canada.

Maiasaura Media

• ROM-MaiasaurHead-May14-05.png

  Skull cast, Royal Ontario Museum

• Maiasaura Scale.svg

  Size comparison with human

• Maiasaura embryo.jpg

  Reconstructed cast by Jack Horner of a Maiasaura emerging from its egg

• Maiasaura peeblesorum cast - University of California Museum of Paleontology - Berkeley, CA - DSC04688.JPG

  Cast of a juvenile skeleton

• Maiasaura BW.jpg

  Life restorations of an adult and juvenile

• Maiasaura Nest Model.001 - Natural History Museum of London.JPG

  Reconstruction of a nest with eggs

• Illustration of a herd of Maiasaura walking along a creekbed, as found in the semi-arid Two Medicine Formation fossil bed. This region was characterized by volcanic ash layers and conifer, fern and horsetail vegetation.

References

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