Saurolophus

Live reconstruction of Saurolophus

• Alberta (Canada)
• New Mexico ( USA)
• Ömnögov, Bajanchongor (Mongolia)

Saurolophus is a genus of bird Beck dinosaur ( Ornithischia ) from the large group of herbivorous hadrosaur ( Hadrosauridae ) and lived during the late Cretaceous in North America and Asia.

The fossils of the North American type species S. osborni were found in the Horseshoe Canyon Formation in Alberta and described in 1912 by Brown. An Asian Art, S. angustirostris was described in 1952 after several skulls and skeletons from a total of 15 specimens have been found in the Nemegt Formation in Mongolia by Rozhdestvensky.

Description

Saurolophus reached about nine to twelve meters in length. It had on the skull with a 13 -centimeter-long massive concave bone comb, which pointed to the rear. This ridge was formed by the nasal bones and crossed by the nasal passages. Therefore, the hypothesis was put forward that part of the nasal tissue was perhaps inflatable and have enabled the animals to give barking sounds. The bone comb would have served in this case as a prop of the sack- like structure and increases its surface. Since the hadrosaur lived in groups, it is quite conceivable that they - especially over long distances - communicated acoustically with each other.

The tip of the toothless beak was curved slightly upwards. For grinding the plant food he had hundreds of closely packed molars. The hind legs of Saurolophus were significantly longer and stronger than its front legs. He could move two - and four-legged.