Dino card No. 0394 of 2,027

Charonosaurus

Say it: kə-ROH-nə-SOR-əs

Name means: “Charon's lizard”1

Ate: PlantsDuck-billsLate Cretaceous

Charonosaurus was a huge duck-billed dinosaur that lived at the very end of the Cretaceous period in what is now China. It had a long, hollow crest on its head like its cousin Parasaurolophus, and it may have used that crest to make loud honking sounds.1

Lived

72 to 66 million years ago3

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Jiayin, Heilongjiang Province, northeastern China1 3

Food

Plants3

Length

10 m1

estimate

Weight

5 tonnes1

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

How heavy was it?

as heavy as 3 cars

as long as 2 cars parked in a rowas long as 56 bananas end to endabout as heavy as an elephantas heavy as 1000 watermelons

How big was Charonosaurus compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Charonosaurus is one of the largest hadrosaurs known from Asia, reaching about 10 metres (33 feet) long and weighing around 5 metric tons (5.5 short tons).1

Its skull looks very similar to Parasaurolophus, so scientists think it also had a long, backward-pointing hollow crest on its head.1

Fossils of Charonosaurus were found in huge bone beds that contain many skeletons of both young and adult animals, suggesting they may have died together in a flood or river event.1

The bone beds are about 90% lambeosaurine fossils, and the rest are from ankylosaurs, theropods, turtles, and crocodiles.1

Teeth from meat-eating dinosaurs found in the same area show that predators like Tarbosaurus fed on Charonosaurus carcasses.1

Charonosaurus lived right at the end of the Cretaceous period, about 66 million years ago, and it was one of the last lambeosaurines to exist.1

AI-made picture of Charonosaurus — An AI-made picture of how Charonosaurus might have looked, made by a computer from what scientists know. It is a guess: the real animal may have looked different, and nobody knows its true colours.

you asked

Most asked questions about Charonosaurus

?How big was Charonosaurus?

Charonosaurus was about 10 metres (33 feet) long and weighed around 5 metric tons (5.5 short tons). That's as long as a school bus and as heavy as a large elephant.1

?Did Charonosaurus have a crest?

Yes, scientists think Charonosaurus had a long, backward-pointing hollow crest on its head, similar to its cousin Parasaurolophus. The crest was probably used for making loud honking sounds to communicate.1

?What did Charonosaurus eat?

Charonosaurus was a herbivore, meaning it ate plants. It likely fed on tough vegetation like conifers, ferns, and horsetails, using its many teeth to chew.2

?When did Charonosaurus live?

Charonosaurus lived at the very end of the Cretaceous period, about 66 million years ago. It was one of the last lambeosaurine dinosaurs to exist.1

?Where was Charonosaurus found?

Charonosaurus fossils were found in the Yuliangze Formation in northeastern China, on the south bank of the Amur River near the village of Jiayin.1

?Did Charonosaurus live with other dinosaurs?

Yes, Charonosaurus lived alongside the tyrannosaur Tarbosaurus, other hadrosaurs like Amurosaurus, ankylosaurs, turtles, and crocodiles. Predators like Tarbosaurus may have hunted or scavenged Charonosaurus.1

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Charonosaurus
Named by: Godefroit et al. 20003
Group: Duck-bills
Family / clade: Hadrosauridae3
Classification: Ornithischia > Ornithopoda > Iguanodontia > Hadrosauridae3
Age of the rocks: 72 to 66 million years (Maastrichtian)3
Rock formations: Yuliangzi3
Countries: China3
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: The first fossils were found in the Yuliangze Formation of China starting in 1975. In 2000, paleontologists Pascal Godefroit, Shuqin Zan, and Liyong Jin named the species Charonosaurus jiayinensis based on a partial skull.1
Still debated: Scientists are not sure exactly what the hollow crest on its head looked like, because only the base of the crest is preserved in the fossils.1

Where the facts come from

Charonosaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
Charonosaurus - Dinosaur Dictionary (dinosaurdictionary.com)
Charonosaurus in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

Every fact on this page has a number that points to its source. If we got something wrong, sorry, we are dino fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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