Prosaurolophus
"before Saurolophus"
- Lived
- 84 to 72 million years ago, Late Cretaceous
- Diet
- Herbivore
- Length
- about 7.6 m (25 ft)
- Group
- Ornithopods, Hadrosauridae
- Found in
- Canada and United States
- Named by
- Brown 1916
Size comparison
To scale
Scale in metersOutline: typical ornithopod shape
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
80 million years ago
Habitat
Its Canadian habitat included low floodplains crossed by winding rivers near the Western Interior Seaway. Neighbors included Gryposaurus, Corythosaurus and Daspletosaurus.
Field notes
About Prosaurolophus
What it was like
Prosaurolophus was a duck-billed plant eater about 7.6 meters (25 feet) long. It had a small, solid crest rising at the top of its snout, in front of its eyes. It is thought to be an ancestor or close relative of Saurolophus, which had a longer, spike-like crest.
Its world
It lived about 84 to 72 million years ago, in the Late Cretaceous, in what is now Alberta, Canada, and Montana, in the United States. Its bones come from the Dinosaur Park Formation, the Two Medicine Formation and the Bearpaw Shale, where it lived alongside the duck-billed Gryposaurus and Corythosaurus and the tyrannosaur Daspletosaurus.
How it was found
Brown named Prosaurolophus in 1916. It is known from 15 finds, including several skulls, so scientists have been able to study how it changed as it grew.
Field gallery
More views of Prosaurolophus
Scenes reconstructed from the available fossil evidence.
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Lived alongside
Found in the same rock formations
A rock formation can hold fossils laid down millions of years apart, so not every animal here met Prosaurolophus.
The evidence
The science behind Prosaurolophus
Which parts of the picture come from its own bones, and which come from its relatives.
From its own fossils
- Several skulls preserve a small, solid crest above the snout, in front of the eyes.
- Skeletons preserve much of the body, including the limbs and backbone.
Borrowed from relatives
- Most of the skeleton is known from its own bones, so its body shape needs little borrowing from other duckbills.
Still unknown
- Its color and the shape of any soft tissue around the crest.
- Whether the crest helped attract mates or identify members of its own species.
- Which plants it preferred to eat.
Discovery timeline
- 1916Named itBrown
- 2013SkullMcGarrity, Campione & Evans
- 2018Growing upDrysdale et al.
Key papers
The research behind what we know of Prosaurolophus
Named it
Named Prosaurolophus from a skull with a small crest above its snout.
A new crested trachodont dinosaur, Prosaurolophus maximus. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 35: 701-708
No link available
Skull
Compared skulls of different sizes and found that crest variation did not support splitting Prosaurolophus into separate species.
Cranial anatomy and variation inProsaurolophus maximus(Dinosauria: Hadrosauridae). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 167: 531-568
Read the paper : Cranial anatomy and variation inProsaurolophus maximus(Dinosauria: Hadrosauridae) (opens in a new tab)Growing up
Described young skeletons and showed how the crest developed and thickened during growth.
Description of juvenile specimens of Prosaurolophus maximus (Hadrosauridae: Saurolophinae) from the Upper Cretaceous Bearpaw Formation of southern Alberta, Canada, reveals ontogenetic changes in crest morphology. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 38: e1547310
Read the paper : Description of juvenile specimens of Prosaurolophus maximus (Hadrosauridae: Saurolophinae) from the Upper Cretaceous Bearpaw Formation of southern Alberta, Canada, reveals ontogenetic changes in crest morphology (opens in a new tab)
Close relatives
Other members of Hadrosauridae
Sources: Wikidata