Brachylophosaurus Characteristics

Brachylophosaurus measured around 25 feet (9 metres) in length and weighed around 2 tons. Brachylophosaurus had a thick, turned-down beak which some paleontologists take as evidence that the males of this genus head-butted one another for the attention of females. The upper beak of Brachylophosaurus was larger and broader than in other duckbilled dinosaurs that lived at the same time. The upper beak also turned down where the horny covering was attached. The lower jaw had a predentary bone that was covered by a horny beak. Like other large ornithopods, it used this horny beak to nip foliage from low-standing boughs and shrubs. Brachylophosaurus had a broad, flat, shieldlike crest on top of its head, directly above its eyes. This bony crest is unlike any other crest of any hadrosaurid. Brachylophosaurus had very long arms.

Brachylophosaurus were herbivourous dinosaurs that fed upon plants. Brachylophosaurus had many teeth behind its beak for chewing plant food. Like other hadrosaurids (and many ornithopods), chewing was done by an unusual movement of the upper jaws with the large jaw muscles at the back of the skull. When the upper and lower teeth came into contact, the upper jaw moved slightly to the side to allow the teeth to move past one another. In this way, these hadrosaurids were able to chew with a sideways motion, somewhat similar to how cows and horses chew. Muscular cheeks kept food from spilling out of the sides of the mouth.

Brachylophosaurus is known from several skeletons and bonebed material from the Judith River Formation of Montana and the Oldman Formation of Alberta, so roughly lived around 75 million years old in Late Cretaceous.

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.)

It was first described by Charles M. Sternberg in 1953, on a skull and partial skeleton at first thought to belong to Gryposaurus (or Kritosaurus as it was known at the time). This animal is notable for its bony crest, which forms a flat, paddle-like plate over the top of the skull. Some researchers have suggested it was used for pushing contests, however, it may not have been strong enough for this.