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Bactrosaurus

By , About.com Guide

A Bactrosaurus skeleton (Wikimedia Commons)

Name:

Bactrosaurus (Greek for "staff lizard"); pronounced BACK-tro-SORE-us

Habitat:

Woodlands of Asia

Historical Period:

Late Cretaceous (95-85 million years ago)

Size and Weight:

About 20 feet long and 2 tons

Diet:

Plants

Distinguishing Characteristics:

Thick trunk; club-shaped spines on backbone

About Bactrosaurus:

Among the earliest of all the hadrosaurs, or duck-billed dinosaurs--roaming the woodlands of Asia at least 10 million years before its more famous descendants--Bactrosaurus is important because it had certain characteristics (such as a thick, squat body) more often seen in iguanodonts (paleontologists believe that hadrosaurs and iguanodonts evolved from a common ancestor). Unlike most hadrosaurs, Bactrosaurus seems to have lacked a crest on its head, and it also had a row of short spines growing out of its vertebrae (which formed a prominent, skin-covered ridge along this dinosaur's back).

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