This tubular crested dinosaur, Parasaurolophus cyrtocristatus , roamed North America 75 million years ago. Now a perfectly well-preserved skull has been found in the New Mexico badlands, providing crucial information on this duck-billed dinosaur and unusual elongated tube-like crest with an internal network of airways.
First discovered in 1922, it is one of the most recognizable dinosaurs (also included in the Jurassic Park movie franchise).
Analysis of the skull has allowed paleontologists to definitively identify how such a structure grew in this dinosaur and its role.
"Imagine that your nose grows in your face, a meter behind your head, and then turns to adhere over your eyes. Parasaurolophus breathed through eight feet of pipe before the oxygen reached his head" , Terry Gates, a paleontologist in the Department of Biological Sciences, said in a press release.
Citation: Gates TA, Evans DC, Sertich JJW. 2021. Description and rediagnosis of the crested hadrosaurid (Ornithopoda) dinosaur Parasaurolophus cyrtocristatus on the basis of new cranial remains. PeerJ 9: e10669 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.10669
