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PALEONTOLOGY ARTICLE
Hadrosaurus
by MIKE BALDWIN
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12.01.00--This duckbill dinosaur roamed the coast of
Pennsylvania and other parts of the world.
The hadrosaurus egg which was presented as the Grand
Prize at the 22nd Annual Mid-America Mineral, Fossil and
Jewelry Show in Memphis, TN (April 2001) came from the
Xixia Basin, Henai Province, China.
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The Hadrosaurus, although huge, was a herbavore and not very
ferocious.
Nearly as tall as a two-story building, the Hardosaurus
weighed up to four tons and was a member of the dinosaur
family known as "duckbills" because of the bird-like
nature of their jaws and skull structure. The Hadrosaurus
could grow up to 30 feet long from the tip of its nose to the
tip of its tail.
It's demeanor could be compared to that of a cow. It was a
plant eater that browsed leaves and branches along the marshes
and shrub lands of the Atlantic coast of North America and
other marshlands of the Cretaceous Era. It was a good swimmer
and could have ventured out into the water a substantial
distance from shore. Duckbills lived and traveled in herds.
They laid eggs in nests. Some paleontologists believe they
protected the eggs until hatched and then continued to nurture
the brood for a period of time, just as birds do.
It is easy to imagine how the edges of conifer forests along
the Cretaceous coast of Pennsylvania were once filled with
duckbill dinosaurs. One of these Hardosaurs most likely fell
into fast moving water and died. Its body floated out to sea,
where it sank and was quickly covered in mud and sediment.
After the flesh decayed, the bones absorbed minerals,
surviving intact as a skeleton until about 70 million years
later when William Parker Foulke, a Haddonfield, New Jersey
workman, pulled it from the sticky clay, moved it into the
sunlight and wondered aloud what it could possibly be. This
Hadrosarus became the first complete dinosaur skeleton ever to
be discovered intact.
To learn more about the Hadrosaurus, visit this website
http://www.levins.com/dinosaur.html
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This is a photograph of the actual Hadrosaurus
egg which was given away as the Grand Prize at the
22nd Annual Mid-America Mineral, Fossil and
Jewelry Show to be held in Memphis, TN on April 28
and 29, 2001.
This egg measured about 8 inches long and comes
complete with a display case and an x-ray of the
egg. The egg is from the Xixia Basin, Henai
Province, China (65-150 million-year-old
Cretaceous Era).
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