Meet the hadrosaurs! These plant-eaters had beaks like a duck, hundreds of teeth, and some wore amazing head crests that honked like trumpets.
Quick Answer
Duck-billed dinosaurs are called hadrosaurs (family Hadrosauridae). They were big plant-eaters with a wide, flat beak like a duck's bill and hundreds of grinding teeth. Many had fancy head crests they used to honk and show off. They lived about 100 to 66 million years ago, and famous ones include Parasaurolophus, Edmontosaurus and Maiasaura.
Duck-billed dinosaurs, or hadrosaurs (say HAD-roh-sores), were one of the most common kinds of dinosaurs at the end of the dinosaur age. Scientists have found so many of their bones, eggs, footprints and even skin that we know more about them than almost any other dinosaur!
They were herbivores, which means they ate plants. Most were about as long as a bus and walked on all fours while they munched, but they could rise up on their strong back legs to run away from danger. Their family name comes from Hadrosaurus, one of the first dinosaur skeletons ever dug up, way back in 1858 in New Jersey.
Hadrosaurs lived all over the world, in North America, Asia, Europe, South America and even Antarctica. Their older cousin Iguanodon had a beak too, but hadrosaurs took the duck-bill look to a whole new level.
A duck bill
A wide, flat, toothless beak at the front for snipping leaves and twigs, like a pair of garden clippers.
Hundreds of teeth
Rows and rows of teeth in the back of the jaws ground plants into mush. New teeth grew in as old ones wore out.
Head crests
Many had crests of bone on their heads: tubes, helmets, hatchets and spikes. Some were hollow and made sounds.
Two legs or four
Strong back legs and smaller front legs with hoof-like fingers. They walked on four legs and ran on two.
Lambeosaurines: the hollow crests
These hadrosaurs had big, hollow crests with twisty air tubes inside that connected to their noses. Think Parasaurolophus, Corythosaurus and Lambeosaurus. They were the trumpet players of the dinosaur world!
Saurolophines: flat heads and solid crests
These hadrosaurs had flatter heads, or small solid crests made of bone, and often the widest duck bills. Think Edmontosaurus, Maiasaura and Saurolophus. Some may have had floppy skin on their noses for calling out.
Here are 10 of the most famous hadrosaurs, with how to say their names and what the names mean.
Hollow crest
Say it: PAR-ah-SORE-oh-LOAF-us · Means: “Near crested lizard”
⭐ Its long, hollow head crest worked like a trombone. Air blowing through the tubes inside made a deep, booming honk that could carry a long way!
Flat head
Say it: ed-MON-toe-SORE-us · Means: “Edmonton lizard”
⭐ One of the last and biggest duck-bills, and a neighbor of T. rex. Some fossils are 'mummies' with skin still preserved!
Read all about Edmontosaurus →
Flat head
Say it: MY-ah-SORE-ah · Means: “Good mother lizard”
⭐ Found with nests full of eggs and babies, so scientists think the parents cared for their young. A piece of Maiasaura bone even flew into space in 1985!
Hollow crest
Say it: koh-RITH-oh-SORE-us · Means: “Helmet lizard”
⭐ Its tall, round crest looks like the helmet of an ancient Greek soldier. Fossils with skin show it was covered in small, bumpy scales.
Hollow crest
Say it: LAM-bee-oh-SORE-us · Means: “Lambe's lizard (after scientist Lawrence Lambe)”
⭐ Its crest was shaped like a hatchet, with a big front part and a spike pointing backward. Babies had tiny crests that grew as they got older.
Solid crest
Say it: SORE-oh-LOAF-us · Means: “Ridged lizard”
⭐ One of the only dinosaurs found on two continents! Its crest was a solid spike of bone, and it may have puffed up a balloon of skin on its nose to call out.
Flat head
Say it: shan-TUNG-oh-SORE-us · Means: “Shandong lizard”
⭐ The biggest duck-billed dinosaur ever found. It weighed about as much as three elephants, and its skull alone was about as long as a grown-up is tall!
The first one found
Say it: HAD-roh-SORE-us · Means: “Sturdy lizard”
⭐ The whole hadrosaur family is named after it! Found in 1858, it was one of the first dinosaur skeletons ever discovered, and it's the state dinosaur of New Jersey.
Solid crest
Say it: BRACK-ee-LOAF-oh-SORE-us · Means: “Short-crested lizard”
⭐ A famous mummy nicknamed 'Leonardo' still has skin and maybe even its last meal of leaves and ferns inside its belly.
Hollow crest
Say it: CHING-dow-SORE-us · Means: “Qingdao lizard (a city in China)”
⭐ It used to be called the 'unicorn dinosaur' because people thought it had one horn. Newer fossils show the 'horn' was part of a big, fan-shaped crest!
🎶 Try it: hum with your mouth closed, then cup your hands into a long tube in front of your mouth and hum again. Hear how the sound changes? That's a little bit like a hadrosaur crest!
Caring parents
Maiasaura laid eggs in bowl-shaped nests in big nesting colonies. Babies stayed in the nest while parents brought them food.
More about dinosaur eggs →Huge herds
Thousands of hadrosaur footprints found together in Alaska and Canada show they walked in big herds, which kept them safer from T. rex.
More about dinosaur footprints →Plant munchers
They ate leaves, twigs, pine needles, ferns and even rotting wood, grinding everything up with their teeth.
Meet more plant-eaters →🦴 Dinosaur mummies! Some hadrosaurs were buried so fast that their skin turned to stone too. The best ones belong to Edmontosaurus, which even had hoof-like toes.
Here's how long these hadrosaurs were, from beak to tail, compared with a grown-up and a school bus. Sizes are scientists' best estimates.
Duck-billed dinosaurs are called hadrosaurs. Scientists put them in a family called Hadrosauridae, named after Hadrosaurus, one of the first dinosaurs ever found in North America. Famous hadrosaurs include Parasaurolophus, Edmontosaurus, Maiasaura and Corythosaurus.
The front of their mouth was a wide, flat beak that looks a lot like a duck's bill. They used it to snip and pull leaves, twigs and ferns. Unlike a duck, they had hundreds of teeth packed into the back of their jaws for grinding plants.
Hadrosaurs were herbivores, which means they ate plants. They munched leaves, twigs, conifer needles, ferns, horsetails and even rotting wood. Their rows of grinding teeth turned tough plants into mush.
Hundreds! Hadrosaur teeth were stacked in tight columns called dental batteries. Counting the new teeth waiting underneath, some hadrosaurs like Edmontosaurus had more than 1,000 teeth. When an old tooth wore down, a new one moved up to replace it.
Shantungosaurus from China was the biggest known hadrosaur. It was about 50 feet (15 meters) long and weighed around 15 tons, about as much as three elephants.
Many hadrosaurs, like Parasaurolophus and Corythosaurus, had hollow crests with air tubes inside. Scientists think they used them to make loud honking calls, to recognize each other, and to show off, a bit like a peacock's tail.
Some did! Edmontosaurus lived at the same time and place as T. rex, and one Edmontosaurus fossil has a healed T. rex bite on its tail, which means it got away.
Image credits (via Wikimedia Commons): Saurolophus herd by ABelov2014 (CC BY 3.0); Corythosaurus by TotalDino (CC BY 4.0); Lambeosaurus by TotalDino (CC BY-SA 4.0); Saurolophus by TotalDino (CC BY-SA 4.0); Shantungosaurus by Connor Ashbridge (CC BY-SA 4.0); Hadrosaurus by TotalDino (CC BY 4.0); Brachylophosaurus by Connor Ashbridge (CC BY-SA 4.0); Tsintaosaurus by Connor Ashbridge (CC BY-SA 4.0); Parasaurolophus by Connor Ashbridge (CC BY-SA 4.0); Edmontosaurus by Connor Ashbridge (CC BY 4.0); Maiasaura by TotalDino (CC BY 4.0).
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