Dino profile
Parasaurolophus
the dinosaur with a singing crest
Parasaurolophus was a duck-billed dinosaur. You can spot it right away by the long crest that goes back from its head.
Its ID card
- Its name
- “Beside the crested lizard”: at first it was thought to be close to another crested dinosaur, Saurolophus. [2]
- When
- At the end of the Cretaceous, about 77 to 73 million years ago. [1]
- Where
- In North America: its fossils have been found in Canada and the United States. [1]
- What it ate
- Plants: pine needles and tree leaves. [1]
- Its family
- The hadrosaurs, the duck-billed dinosaurs. [1]
A singing crest
Its crest is hollow. Inside, a long tube goes from the nostrils, up to the tip of the crest and back down toward the head. [1]
In 1981, paleontologist David Weishampel showed that this crest could work as a sound box, like a musical instrument. [2][4]
In the 1990s, scientists recreated its call on a computer, using a skull found in New Mexico: a low sound, like a trumpet. Nobody knows if it really sounded like that. [1][2]
The crest was maybe also used to recognize other Parasaurolophus. [1]
On two legs or four
It walked on four legs most of the time, but it could rise up on its back legs. [1]
It had a beak and hundreds of teeth. It only used a few of them at a time: the others waited in reserve to replace the ones that wore down. [1]
It probably lived in herds. [1]
Its discovery
In 1920, a team from the University of Toronto finds a skull and part of a skeleton near the Red Deer River, in Alberta, Canada. [2][3]
In 1922, Canadian scientist William Parks gives it its name. This first skeleton is now at the Royal Ontario Museum, in Toronto. [1][2][3]
Three species of Parasaurolophus are known, each with a crest of a different shape and size. [1][2]
Sources
The information on this page comes from these sources:
- Parasaurolophus, Dino Directory, Natural History Museum, London (accessed November 5, 2026).
- Parasaurolophus, Wikipedia (English), and the publications it cites: Farke et al. 2013, Paul 2016, Seebacher 2001, Sullivan & Williamson 1999 (accessed November 5, 2026).
- Parasaurolophus walkeri, a new genus and species of crested trachodont dinosaur, William A. Parks, University of Toronto Studies, Geological Series 13, 1922.
- Acoustic analyses of potential vocalization in lambeosaurine dinosaurs (Reptilia: Ornithischia), David B. Weishampel, Paleobiology 7 (2), 1981.