Dino card No. 1307 of 2,027

Olorotitan

Say it: oh-LOR-oh-TIE-tan

Name means: “titanic swan”1

Ate: PlantsDuck-billsLate Cretaceous

Olorotitan was a duck-billed dinosaur with a tall, hollow crest on its head. It lived in what is now Russia near the end of the age of dinosaurs. This plant-eater had a long neck and a strong beak for chewing tough plants.1

Lived

72 to 66 million years ago3

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Kundur, Amur Oblast, Eastern Russia1 3

Food

Plants1

Length

8 m1

Weight

2.6 tonnes to 3.4 tonnes1

Height

3.5 m1

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

How tall was it?

How heavy was it?

as heavy as 2.5 cars

as long as 8 dogs nose to tailas long as 44 bananas end to endas heavy as 110 big dogsas heavy as 680 watermelonsas tall as 2 doors stacked up

How big was Olorotitan compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Olorotitan had a very long neck for a duck-billed dinosaur, with 18 neck bones. That is why its name means 'titanic swan'.1 2

Its hollow head crest was tall and helmet-shaped, made from expanded skull bones that held the nasal passages.1 2

The skeleton of Olorotitan is the most complete lambeosaurine (a type of duck-billed dinosaur) ever found outside North America.1 2

Olorotitan lived about 72 to 66 million years ago, during the Maastrichtian age of the Late Cretaceous.3

It was one of the last non-bird dinosaurs to go extinct, dying out in the great extinction event 66 million years ago.1

The tail of Olorotitan had extra connections between the bones in its upper part, which may have made that section stiff.2

Olorotitan is closely related to the North American dinosaurs Corythosaurus and Hypacrosaurus.2

AI-made picture of Olorotitan — An AI-made picture of how Olorotitan 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 Olorotitan

?How big was Olorotitan?

Olorotitan grew up to 8 metres (26 feet) long, up to 3.5 metres (11 feet) tall, and weighed between 2.6 and 3.4 metric tons.1

?What did Olorotitan eat?

Olorotitan was a plant-eater. It used its strong beak and hundreds of constantly replaced teeth to grind tough plants.1

?When did Olorotitan live?

Olorotitan lived about 72 to 66 million years ago, during the Maastrichtian age of the Late Cretaceous. It was one of the last non-bird dinosaurs to go extinct.1

?Where was Olorotitan found?

Olorotitan fossils were found in the Amur region of eastern Russia, near the Amur River. The first nearly complete skeleton was discovered between 1999 and 2001.1

?Why did Olorotitan have a crest?

The tall, hollow crest on its head was made from skull bones that held the nasal passages. It probably helped Olorotitan identify others of its kind by sight and sound.1

?Is Olorotitan a dinosaur?

Yes, Olorotitan is a dinosaur. It is a type of duck-billed dinosaur called a lambeosaurine hadrosaurid.1

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Olorotitan
Named by: Godefroit et al. 20033
Group: Duck-bills
Family / clade: Hadrosauridae3
Classification: Ornithischia > Ornithopoda > Iguanodontia > Hadrosauridae3
Age of the rocks: 72 to 66 million years (Maastrichtian)3
Rock formations: Udurchukan3
Countries: Russia3
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Olorotitan was named by Pascal Godefroit and colleagues in 2003. The nearly complete skeleton was dug up between 1999 and 2001 in the Udurchukan Formation at Kundur, Russia.1 2
Still debated: Scientists are not sure if the extra connections between the tail bones were a normal feature or a sign of disease.2

Where the facts come from

Olorotitan (en.wikipedia.org)
doi:10.1016/S1631-0683(03)00017-4 (sciencepress.mnhn.fr)
Olorotitan 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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