Maiasaura
Maiasaura was a duck-billed dinosaur that lived in North America about 80 to 75 million years ago. It is famous for being a good mother that took care of its babies in nests.21
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Fun facts
A huge nesting site was found in Montana in 1978, with nests, eggs, and baby skeletons.2
Baby Maiasaura were too big to fit inside eggs when they hatched, and their bones were not fully hardened.2
Hatchlings were about 0.5 metres (1.6 feet) long, while juveniles reached about 1 metre (3.3 feet).2
Hundreds of Maiasaura skeletons were found together in one ash bed, suggesting they lived in herds.2
Maiasaura could walk on two legs or all fours.1
Most asked questions about Maiasaura
?How big was Maiasaura?
About 9 metres (30 feet) long and weighed up to 4 metric tons (4.4 short tons).4
?What did Maiasaura eat?
It was a herbivore, eating plants. It had a horny beak and rows of hundreds of teeth for chewing tough plant material.1
?When did Maiasaura live?
It lived during the Late Cretaceous Period, about 80 to 75 million years ago.1
?Where was Maiasaura found?
Fossils have been found in Montana, USA, and Alberta, Canada. A famous nesting site was discovered in Montana in 1978.42
?Why is Maiasaura called the good mother lizard?
Because fossils show that adults cared for their young in nests, which was rare for dinosaurs. The name means 'good mother lizard'.14
?Did Maiasaura live in herds?
Yes. Hundreds of skeletons found together in one ash bed suggest they lived in large herds, possibly up to 10,000 individuals.4
?Could Maiasaura walk on two legs?
Yes, it could walk on two legs or all fours. Young Maiasaura walked mostly on two legs, while adults walked more on all fours.14
?How fast could Maiasaura run?
Scientists are not sure, but like other large hadrosaurs, it probably could run fairly fast to escape predators, though no exact speed is known.4
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For dino experts
- Scientific name
- Maiasaura
- Named by
- Horner and Makela 19795
- Group
- Duck-bills
- Family / clade
- Hadrosauridae5
- Classification
- Ornithischia > Ornithopoda > Iguanodontia > Hadrosauridae5
- Age of the rocks
- 84 to 72 million years (Campanian)5
- Rock formations
- Two Medicine5
- Countries
- USA5
- Fossil records
- 7 in the Paleobiology Database5
- Discovery
- Maiasaura was named by Jack Horner and Robert Makela in 1979 after a nesting site was found in the Two Medicine Formation near Choteau, Montana.52
Where the facts come from
- Maiasaura | Natural History Museum (nhm.ac.uk)
- Maiasaura | Herbivorous, Nesting, Cretaceous | Britannica (britannica.com)
- Maiasaura | Earth and Atmospheric Sciences | Research Starters | EBSCOhost (ebsco.com)
- Maiasaura (Wikipedia) (Wikipedia)
- Maiasaura in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.
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