STL Science Center

STL Science Center

09 September 2011

Corythosaurus

Corythosaurus casaurius was named as the single species of the genus Corythosaurus in 1914 by Barnum Brown. The name comes from the hood ornament parked on the top of this dinosaur's skull. Thinking it looked a lot like a Corinthian helmet, Brown decided on Corythosaurus, effectively calling it "Helmet Lizard" when translated from Greek. Like other advanced duck-billed hadrosaurus, Corythosaurus lived in the Cretaceous Period from about 77 million to 76 million years ago. Many examples of this animal have been unearthed in Canada's Dinosaur Provincial Park in Alberta, Canada. One of the earliest examples even possessed fossilized skin. The genus Corythosaurus once housed seven separate species, however, in the 1970's Peter Dodson studied the species and determined that gender and age were the only true differences in the skulls, thus making up many versions of one species which, to this day, is now the only species in the genus.

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