Corythosaurus

Corythosaurus is a genus of hadrosaurid "duck-billed" dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous period, about 77–75.7 million years ago, in what is now western North America. Its name is derived from the Greek word κόρυς, meaning "helmet", named and described in 1914 by Barnum Brown. Corythosaurus is now thought to be a lambeosaurine, thus related to Lambeosaurus, Nipponosaurus, Velafrons, Hypacrosaurus, and Olorotitan. Corythosaurus has an estimated length of 7.7–9 metres (25–30 ft) and has a skull, including the crest, that is 70.8 centimetres tall.

A picture published with the record for Corythosaurus.

James Tiffin Jr. · CC BY-SA 2.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
CorythosauriniPBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Ornithopoda
Life habit
ground dwelling, gregariousPBDB, for Ornithischia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Ornithischia
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Ornithischia
Length
9 mWikidata
Mass
3 tonneWikidata

Time the record covers

At most 12 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 83.6 Mya and 72.2 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Late Cretaceous — about 29 of 29 occurrencesLate Cretaceous84–83 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences83–83 Mya — about 1 occurrence83–82 Mya — about 1 occurrence82–82 Mya — about 1 occurrence82–82 Mya — about 1 occurrence82–81 Mya — about 1 occurrence81–81 Mya — about 1 occurrence81–80 Mya — about 1 occurrence80–80 Mya — about 1 occurrence80–80 Mya — about 1 occurrence80–79 Mya — about 1 occurrence79–79 Mya — about 1 occurrence79–78 Mya — about 1 occurrence78–78 Mya — about 1 occurrence78–77 Mya — about 1 occurrence77–77 Mya — about 1 occurrence77–77 Mya — about 1 occurrence77–76 Mya — about 1 occurrence76–76 Mya — about 1 occurrence76–75 Mya — about 1 occurrence75–75 Mya — about 1 occurrence75–75 Mya — about 1 occurrence75–74 Mya — about 1 occurrence74–74 Mya — about 1 occurrence74–73 Mya — about 1 occurrence73–73 Mya — about 1 occurrence73–73 Mya — about 1 occurrence73–72 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences84.1 Mya71.7 Mya

29 occurrences of Corythosaurus on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

29 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

4 formations

Dinosaur Park — 50.81°N, 111.63°WDinosaur Park — 50.69°N, 111.62°WDinosaur Park — 50.74°N, 111.53°WDinosaur Park — 50.75°N, 111.44°WDinosaur Park — 50.57°N, 111.51°WDinosaur Park — 50.76°N, 111.40°WDinosaur Park — 50.75°N, 111.48°WDinosaur Park — 50.60°N, 111.62°WOldman — 50.60°N, 111.62°WOldman — 50.65°N, 111.62°WJudith River — 47.60°N, 109.46°WJudith River — 48.54°N, 109.67°WTwo Medicine — 48.46°N, 112.07°W

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The named rock units Corythosaurus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Corythosaurus and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Corythosaurus and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

9 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 29 sites for Corythosaurus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

14 references

Each of the 29 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 2 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content3

Picture of Corythosaurus

Credit
James Tiffin Jr.
Licence
CC BY-SA 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Corythosaurus sp. · rom:vertebrate palaeontology:759

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Credit
sharksly
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

This entry was cached before the site began recording what Smithsonian Open Access did, so a search that failed cannot be told from one that found nothing.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itCorythosaurini through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Brown 1914