Edmontosaurus regalis ed-MON-toh-SOR-us
"Edmonton lizard"
You 1.8 m (5.9 ft) tall
Edmontosaurus 12 m (39 ft) long
7 people holding hands
- Length
- 12 m (39 ft) — About 12 m long, ~4 tonnes — one of the largest hadrosaurs.
- Period
- Late Cretaceous (73–66 Mya)
- Place
- North America · Alberta, Canada · Montana · Wyoming
- Food
- Herbivore — Pine needles, conifer twigs, leaves — chewed by a battery of hundreds of teeth.
Edmontosaurus was the cow of the Cretaceous — enormously abundant, found from Alaska to Texas in vast herds. It had no crest, a broad duck-bill snout, and the dental battery typical of hadrosaurs: hundreds of teeth fused into a grinding surface. Edmontosaurus lived alongside Tyrannosaurus and made up a major part of its diet.
What we know
- One of the last and most abundant hadrosaurs.
- Mummified specimens preserve skin impressions — bumpy scales, no feathers.
- Lived alongside T. rex and Triceratops in the final two million years of the Cretaceous.
- Found in massive bonebeds with hundreds of individuals — possibly migratory herds.
What we guess
- Whether large fleshy combs grew from the top of the head in life (one specimen suggests yes).
- Whether herds migrated seasonally between Alaska and the U.S. interior.
- How fast it ran — most evidence supports moderate (~25 km/h) escape speed.