Lambeosaurus

Live reconstruction of Lambeosaurus laticaudus

• Dinosaur Provincial Park in Alberta (Canada)
• Baja California Norte (Mexico)

• L. laticaudus (Morris, 1981)
• Lambei L. ( Parks, 1922)
• L. magnicristatus ( Sternberg, 1935)

Lambeosaurus ( " Lambe lizard" ) is a genus of hadrosaur, a diverse group of bird Beck dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous ( Campanian ) of North America.

Fossils of two species (L. lambei and L. magnicristatus ) were found in the Judith River Group in Dinosaur Provincial Park in Alberta, Canada. They include nearly 20 well-preserved skull, partly together with found in anatomical connection skeletons. Among the fossils are both adult animals and pups. A skull and some skeletal parts of another species ( L. laticaudus ) were found in the El Gallo Formation in the Mexican state of Baja California Norte.

Characteristics and systematics

Lambeosaurus is the namesake genus of the taxon Lambeosaurinae, that Hadrosauriergruppe whose representatives contributed a hollow, from nose ( nasal ) and premaxillary bone ( premaxilla ) formed bone crest on the skull. In Lambeosaurus the cavity, however, only a very small portion of the bone crest took them. A pointing the muzzle outgrowth of the zygomatic bone ( Jugale ) is triangular in cross section. The radius ( radius) was longer than the upper arm bone (humerus ). Together with Corythosaurus, Hypacrosaurus and Parasaurolophus forms a monophyletic clade Lambeosaurus compared to the basal Tsintaosaurus in which these features are missing or even less pronounced. Lambeosaurus reached an average length of about 12 meters. However, some findings indicate that even 15 to 16 meters length, which Lambeosaurus would have been one of the biggest hadrosaur. At the vertebral anatomy shows that the spine was usually held horizontally, that the animal so as hadrosaur mostly, mostly quadrupedal ( four-legged ) was moving.