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Brachylophosaurus

By Bob Strauss, About.com

Brachylophosaurus (Wikimedia Commons)

Name:

Brachylophosaurus (Greek for "short-crested lizard"); pronounced BRACK-ee-LOW-fo-SORE-us

Habitat:

Woodlands of North America

Historical Period:

Late Cretaceous (75 million years ago)

Size and Weight:

About 20 feet long and 2 tons

Diet:

Plants

Distinguishing Characteristics:

Thick, downturned beak; short crest on head

About Brachylophosaurus:

Only three complete fossils of this hadrosaur, or duck-billed dinosaur, have ever been found, but they're so amazingly well-preserved that (as paleontologists often do) they were immediately given nicknames: Elvis, Leonardo and Roberta. (The same research team also found a fourth, incomplete fossil of a juvenile, which they dubbed Peanut.)

Although it's named for the unusually short crest on its head (short, that is, for a hadrosaur), Brachylophosaurus stood out more for its thick, downturned beak, which some paleontologists take as evidence that the males of this genus head-butted one another for the attention of females.

The most completely preserved Brachylophosaurus specimen, Leonardo, is the subject of a Discovery Channel documentary, Secrets of the Dinosaur Mummy. Here, it's revealed that Leonardo had a birdlike crop on its neck (presumably to aid in digestion) as well as different-sized scales on different parts of its body, among other anatomical features.

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