Kritosaurus
Kritosaurus was a duck-billed dinosaur that lived in North America near the end of the Age of Dinosaurs. It had a big, flat beak like a duck and could walk on two legs or all fours. This plant-eater munched on tough plants with hundreds of teeth in its cheeks.1
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How heavy was it?
as long as 2 cars parked in a row🍌as long as 50 bananas end to end
as heavy as 200 dogs🍉as heavy as 800 watermelons🎒as heavy as 5 whole school classes of kids🐻❄️as heavy as 9 polar bears🏃could run 100 metres in 16 seconds (the fastest human needs 9.6)How big was Kritosaurus compared to YOU?
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Fun facts
Kritosaurus means 'separated lizard' because the bones in its cheek were arranged in a special way.1
The first Kritosaurus fossil was found in 1904 by Barnum Brown in New Mexico, but the front of the skull was missing.1
Scientists once thought Kritosaurus had a Roman nose, but that was because the skull was broken and put back together wrong.1
Kritosaurus lived alongside other dinosaurs like Alamosaurus, Parasaurolophus, Pentaceratops, and Bistahieversor.1
Some scientists think Kritosaurus and Anasazisaurus might be the same dinosaur, but others disagree.1
Kritosaurus could reach about 9 metres (30 feet) long and weigh about 4 metric tons (4.4 short tons).1
Most asked questions about Kritosaurus
?How big was Kritosaurus?
Kritosaurus reached about 9 metres (30 feet) long and weighed about 4 metric tons (4.4 short tons). Some partial remains from Mexico may have been around 11 metres (36 feet) long, but those are now considered a different dinosaur.12
?What did Kritosaurus eat?
Kritosaurus was a herbivore, eating plants with a broad beak and hundreds of teeth in its cheeks. It could feed from the ground up to about 4 metres (13 feet) high.1
?When did Kritosaurus live?
Kritosaurus lived during the Late Cretaceous, approximately 74.5 to 66 million years ago.12
?Where was Kritosaurus found?
Kritosaurus fossils were found in New Mexico, USA, in the De-na-zin Member of the Kirtland Formation. Some bones from Texas and Mexico were also referred to it, but those are now considered different genera.1
?Why is it called Kritosaurus?
Kritosaurus means 'separated lizard' because of the arrangement of its cheek bones. It's sometimes mistranslated as 'noble lizard' due to a mistaken idea about its nose.1
?Did Kritosaurus have a crest?
Yes, based on a skull originally referred to Anasazisaurus, Kritosaurus had a tab-like crest made of nasal bones that rose between and above its eyes and folded back under itself. This crest helped tell it apart from similar duck-billed dinosaurs.1
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Myth buster
Myth: Kritosaurus had a big bump on its nose like a Roman nose.
Truth: The original skull was broken and the nose area was reconstructed flat. Later scientists realized the real shape was probably arched like Gryposaurus.1
For dino experts
- Scientific name
- Kritosaurus
- Named by
- Brown 19103
- Group
- Duck-bills
- Family / clade
- Hadrosauridae3
- Classification
- Ornithischia > Ornithopoda > Iguanodontia > Hadrosauridae3
- Age of the rocks
- 86 to 66 million years (Santonian / Maastrichtian)3
- Rock formations
- Kirtland, Fruitland, Fruitland/Kirtland3
- Countries
- USA, Canada3
- Fossil records
- 25 in the Paleobiology Database3
- Discovery
- Barnum Brown discovered the first Kritosaurus fossil in 1904 in New Mexico. He named it in 1910, but the front of the skull was missing and he had to guess what it looked like.1
- Still debated
- Scientists still debate whether Kritosaurus is the same as Anasazisaurus and exactly how its skull was shaped.1
Where the facts come from
- Kritosaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
- Kritosaurus | Natural History Museum (nhm.ac.uk)
- Kritosaurus in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.
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Parasaurolophus
Edmontosaurus
Saurolophus
Hypacrosaurus
Corythosaurus
Gryposaurus
Tyrannosaurus
Triceratops
Velociraptor
Spinosaurus
Ankylosaurus
Pteranodon