Sunday, March 18, 2018

Maiasaura

Maiasuara was a hadrosaur or duckbill dinosaur of the Cretaceous Period.  A Maiasaura nesting site was found in Montana, USA.  It was on what is now a ranch.  The nests were only about 7 feet or around 2 meters apart.  The nests were around 6-7 feet wide or about 2 meters wide.  The nests were 2.5 feet deep.  They were found with fossilized unhatched eggs and young of various ages.  Nests had around 20 eggs in each nest and the site had many nests.  When hatched the young were about 1 foot or .3 meters long.  This was the first time dinosaur embryos were found in North America.  They also found evidence of regurgitated plant material.   Dr. John Horner is the famous paleontologist who was in charge of excavation of the Maiasaura site.  He and Robert Makela also named the dinosaur.  The scientific name is:  Maiasaura peeblesorum.  "Maiasaura" means "good mother lizard."  This is the Genus name.  The species name (which is never capitalized) honors a ranch family named Peebles.  The fossils were found on the Peebles Ranch in Montana.


Maiasaura peeblesorum

My drawing shows both parents but we do not know if that was reality.  However, in many bird species the young are raised by both parents.  So it is reasonable to hypothesize or even infer that the young Maiasaura were raised by both parents.  As far as size, the adult Maiasaura were around 30 feet long and weighed up to 22,000 lbs or about 10,000 kg.  That is around 11 tons or 10 metric tonnes.
An interesting point is this hadrosaur had 4 fingers on their hands or front feet if you prefer.  One of the fingers was kind of like a thumb or dew claw on a dog.  Maiasaura had 3 toes on their feet like most bipedal dinosaurs.  They could walk as bipedal or quadrupedal animals...or on 2 feet or 4 feet.  The drawing shows parents watching the clutch of eggs beginning to hatch.  The hadrosaurs had teeth that kept growing throughout their lives.  At any given time Maiasaura had 150 teeth with about half of them being replacement teeth coming in and half being functioning teeth.  You might also notice a small crest in front of the eyes.  Some paleontologists think this may have been for adult males to fight each other for mating rights.  The crest was probably larger on males.



Maiasaura at Nesting Site simple drawing  

In this second drawing (above) there is only the mother present at the nest.  I should point out that I probably drew these eggs too large.  Since the nests had up to 20 eggs I suppose that the eggs should be smaller in comparison to the adults.  If you want to add a pattern of some kind that would be appropriate, since many modern reptiles have spots, or stripes etc.  I envision this as a young mother with her first clutch of eggs.  Remember that there would probably be many other Maiasaura nearby with their eggs.  However, there is a possibility that a young mother would not have a prime site among the older female's nests.  She might be at the edge of the nesting grounds.  This simpler drawing that lacks a horizon and background might be better for younger kids to color.  It is less intimidating. 

This next drawing is an older one.  It shows that duckbills, like Maiasaura may have been able to eat wood and bark with all those teeth.

Maiasaura feeding on Wood

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