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Lambeosaurus
Temporal range: Late Cretaceous
Life restoration of Lambeosaurus lambei
A restoration of Lambeosaurus lambei
Scientific classification
Domain: 'Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Order: Ornithischia
Suborder: Ornithopoda
Family: Hadrosauridae
Tribe: †Lambeosaurini
Genus: Lambeosaurus
Parks, 1922
Type species
Lambeosaurus lambei
Parks, 1923
Referred species
  • Lambeosaurus lambei (Ostrom, 1961)
  • Lambeosaurus magnicristatus (Wiman, 1931)

and see text.

Synonyms
  • "Procheneosaurus" Parks, 1920
  • "Tetragonosaurus" Parks, 1931

Lambeosaurus was a crested hadrosaur with a beak resembling that of a duck's bill. Its forward-leaning, hollow, bony crest was as big or bigger than the rest of its skull and may have been used to produce sounds, enhance its sense of smell, and/or used in courtship displays. These types of dinosaurs were of the same Hadrosaur type as some who lived near water. Scientists think it lived around North America around 76-75 million years ago.

Description[]

Lambeosaurus, best known through L. lambei, was quite similar to the more well-known Corythosaurus in everything but the form of the head frill. Compared to Corythosaurus, the crest of Lambeosaurus was shifted forward, and the hollow nasal passages were at the front of the crest and stacked vertically.[1] It also can be told apart from Corythosaurus by its lack of forking nasal processes making up part of the sides of the crest, which is the only way to tell juveniles of the two genera apart: the crests took on their unique forms as the animals aged.[2]

In build, Lambeosaurus was like most hadrosaurids, and could move on both two legs and all fours, as shown by footprints of related animals. It had a long, stiff tail that kept it from drooping. The hands had four fingers, lacking the innermost finger of the generalized five-fingered tetrapod hand, while the second, third, and fourth fingers were bunched together and bore hooves, suggesting the animal could use the hands for support. The fifth finger was free and could be used to manipulate objects. Each foot had just the three central toes.[3]

The most unique feature, the crest, was different in the two well-known species. In L. lambei, it was taller, narrower, more rectangular, and had a secondary point raising backwards and was a bit shorter and more rounded in females.[1] In L. magnicristatus, the crest was more rounded with no secondary point, but was strikingly big and pointed a bit forwards.[4][5] In the lesser-known species "L." laticaudus and L. paucidens the crest is not yet known, but "L." laticaudus can be known by its great size and the tall form of its tail.[3]

Lambeosaurus grew to be about 23–25 feet long (7–7.7 meters), weighing 3.3 tons. It is a large, but not the largest "duck-billed" dinosaur.

Classification[]

Lambeosaurus is the type genus of the Lambeosaurinae, the subfamily of hadrosaurids with hollow skull crests. Among the lambeosaurines, it is closely related to Corythosaurus and Hypacrosaurus, with little separating them but crest form.[3] The relationships among these dinosaur genera are hard to pick out. Internet classifications sometimes include all three in the tribe Lambeosaurini, but such a tribe has not been formally defined. Instead, the equivalent clade Corythosaurini has been adopted in publications, including David Evans and Robert Reisz's redescription of L. magnicristatus. This examination indicated that Lambeosaurus is the sister taxon to a clade made up of Corythosaurus, Hypacrosaurus, and the Russian genus Olorotitan; these lambeosaurines, with Nipponosaurus, make up Corythosaurini.[3]

Discovery[]

Lambeosaurus was named by Dr. William A. Parks in 1923 to honor Lawrence Lambe, an early Canadian fossil hunter. Many fossils have been found in North America, including Montana (USA), Baja California (Mexico), and Alberta (Canada).

Paleobiology[]

Feeding[]

As a hadrosaurid, Lambeosaurus was a large bipedal/quadrupedal herbivore, eating plants with an advanced skull that let it grind like mammals chew. Its teeth were replaced all the time and were packed into dental batteries that each had more than 100 teeth, a few of which were in use at a time. It used its beak to crop plants, which were held in the jaws by a cheek-like stretch of flesh. It would have fed from the ground up to around 13 ft above.[3] As noted by Bob Bakker, lambeosaurines have narrower beaks than hadrosaurines, meaning that Lambeosaurus and its relatives could feed on what they liked.[6]

Cranial crest[]

Like other lambeosaurines such as Parasaurolophus and Corythosaurus, Lambeosaurus had a unique crest on the top of its head. Its nasal cavity ran back through this crest, which made it mostly hollow. Many suggestions have been made for the function or functions of the crest, like to house salt glands, boost the sense of smell, use as a snorkel or air trap, make sounds, or to recognize one another.[7][8] Social functions such as noisemaking and recognition between hadrosaurids have become the most widely accepted of the various hypotheses.[3]

The large size of hadrosaurid eye sockets mean it had good sight and, proof that sight was important to these animals. The hadrosaurid sense of hearing seems to be strong to. There is at least one example, in the related Corythosaurus, of a slim ear bone in place, which mixed with a large space for an eardrum implies a sensitive middle ear. This means that the hearing part of the inner ear was well-developed.[7] If used to make noise, the crest could also have been different between species or sexes, because the differing layouts of the nasal passages corresponding to the different crest shapes would have made naturally different sounds.[9]

In Popular Culture[]

  • Lambeosaurus made it's 1st Media appearance in Disney's Fantasia The Rite of Spring. 1 was seen before the Tyrannosaurus Rex attacked & another one was seen with 2 Parasaurolophus & a dying T.Rex during the great drought.
  • A Skeleton of a Lambeosaurus was seen at a Museum on Son of Dinosaurs (1988) along with a few Skeletons of a pack of Dromaeosaurus giving visitors an idea this Predator prey relationship was similar that with Lions & Zebras.
  • A Lambeosaurus was seen briefly along with different species of Dinosaurs from the Cretaceous Period in the 3rd episode of the PBS Program The Dinosaurs! “The Nature of the Beast”.
  • A Lambeosaurus was featured in the 1996 Film Dinosaur Babes.
  • Lambeosaurus was planned to feature in the 1996 version Film King Kong by Peter Jackson. But the film was canned. Only one of the concept designs exists.
  • A bunch of Lambeosaurus appeared in The Land Before Time Movies From The Land Before Time 6 to The Land Before Time 14. They even appeared in most episodes of the TV Series The Land Before Time.
  • Two skeletons of Lambeosaurus from the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Natural History Dinosaur Exhibit have been seen on the IMAX Film T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous.
  • Lambeosaurus was originally planned to appear in the 2000 Disney Film Dinosaur.
  • In Dinosaur Train a Family of Lambeosaurus featuring Larry, his wife Lorraine & their kids Leroy the oldest & Lily the youngest have moved to Pteranodon Terrace & are the new neighbors of the Pteranodon Family. The Lambeosaurus Family have been seen in the series from time to time.
  • Lambeosaurus is featured in Dinosaur King.
  • A Lambeosaurus skeleton along with a Daspletosaurus skeleton from The Field Museum of Natural History has been briefly seen at beginning of Giant Screen Films 3D Movie Waking the T. rex: The Story of SUE.
  • A few Lambeosaurus have been known to appear on the Animated Film Dino Time "Back To The Jurassic".
  • It appears in Jurassic Park the background of a conceptual art of the first Jurassic Park Film.
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Gallery[]

Lambeosaurus/Gallery

References[]

External links[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 Dodson, Peter (1975). "Taxonomic implications of relative growth in lambeosaurine dinosaurs". Systematic Zoology 24 (1): 37–54. doi:10.2307/2412696. JSTOR 2412696.
  2. Evans, David C.; Forster, Catherine F.; and Reisz, Robert R. (2005). "The type specimen of Tetragonosaurus erectofrons (Ornithischia: Hadrosauridae) and the identification of juvenile lambeosaurines". In Currie, Phillip J., and Koppelhus, Eva. Dinosaur Provincial Park: A Spectacular Ancient Ecosystem Revealed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. pp. 349–366. ISBN 0-253-34595-2.
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Horner, John R.; Weishampel, David B.; and Forster, Catherine A (2004). "Hadrosauridae". In Weishampel, David B.; Dodson, Peter; and Osmólska, Halszka (eds.). The Dinosauria (2nd ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 438–463. ISBN 0-520-24209-2.
  4. Lull, Richard Swann; and Wright, Nelda E. (1942). Hadrosaurian Dinosaurs of North America. Geological Society of America Special Paper 40. Geological Society of America. pp. 193–194.
  5. Evans, David C.; and Reisz, Robert R. (2007). "Anatomy and relationships of Lambeosaurus magnicristatus, a crested hadrosaurid dinosaur (Ornithischia) from the Dinosaur Park Formation, Alberta". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 27 (2): 373–393. doi:10.1671/0272-4634(2007)27[373:AAROLM]2.0.CO;2.
  6. Bakker, Robert T. (1986). The Dinosaur Heresies: New Theories Unlocking the Mystery of the Dinosaurs and their Extinction New York: William Morrow. p. 194. ISBN 0-8217-2859-8.
  7. 7.0 7.1 Hopson, James A. (1975). "The evolution of cranial display structures in hadrosaurian dinosaurs". Paleobiology 1 (1): 21–43. JSTOR 2400327.
  8. Norman, David B. (1985). "Hadrosaurids II". The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs: An Original and Compelling Insight into Life in the Dinosaur Kingdom. New York: Crescent Books. pp. 122–127. ISBN 0-517-46890-5.
  9. Weishampel, David B. (1981). "Acoustic analyses of potential vocalization in lambeosaurine dinosaurs (Reptilia: Ornithischia)". Paleobiology 7 (2): 252–261.
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