🦖 Dinosaurs🦆 OrnithopodCretaceousWell known
Maiasaura
Maiasaura peeblesorum
The 1978 find provided the first strong evidence of parental care and colonial nesting in dinosaurs.
Image: Meridas (Vladimír Socha) · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Loading map textures; the previous reconstruction stays visible...
Sites on today's globe · 1 marker
Characteristics
- Scientific name
- Maiasaura peeblesorum
- Period
- Late Cretaceous (Campanian)
- Lived
- 77–76 Ma (77 million years ago)
- Diet
- Herbivore
- Habitat
- Plains
- Length (estimate)
- 9 m
- Mass (estimate)
- 3,000 kg
- Discovered/described
- 1978 · Jack Horner and Bob Makela
Description
Maiasaura ('good mother lizard') was a duck-billed dinosaur that nested in large colonies. Near Choteau researchers found nests, eggs, embryos and young of different ages together. The young probably stayed in the nest for some time and were cared for by adults.
Habitat
Upland plains with marked seasons in present-day Montana.
Fossil sites
Egg Mountain near Choteau, Montana
Two Medicine Formation
Cultural profile: United States →
Contemporaries in the database
Sources: Maiasaura