page_title: Prosaurolophus
section_title: Paleoecology
hierarchical_section_title: Prosaurolophus / Paleoecology
caption_attribution_description: English: Depiction of dietary niche partitioning among megaherbivorous dinosaurs from the DPF (MAZ-2). Left to right: Chasmosaurus belli, Lambeosaurus lambei, Styracosaurus albertensis, Scolosaurus cutleri (formerly sunk in Euoplocephalus tutus), Prosaurolophus maximus, Panoplosaurus mirus. A herd of S. albertensis looms in the background.
context_page_description: Prosaurolophus is a genus of hadrosaurid dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of North America. It is known from the remains of at least 25 individuals belonging to two species, including skulls and skeletons, but it remains obscure. Around 9 m, its fossils have been found in the late Campanian-age Upper Cretaceous Dinosaur Park Formation in Alberta, and the roughly contemporaneous Two Medicine Formation in Montana, dating to around 75.5-74.0 million years ago. Its most recognizable feature is a small solid crest formed by the nasal bones, sticking up in front of the eyes.
  The type species is P. maximus, described by American paleontologist Barnum Brown of the American Museum of Natural History in 1916. A second species, P. blackfeetensis, was described by Jack Horner of the Museum of the Rockies in 1992. The two species were differentiated mainly by crest size and skull proportions.
context_section_description: The Dinosaur Park Formation, home to Prosaurolophus maximus, is interpreted as a low-relief setting of rivers and floodplains that became more swampy and influenced by marine conditions over time as the Western Interior Seaway transgressed westward. The climate was warmer than present-day Alberta, without frost, but with wetter and drier seasons. Conifers were apparently the dominant canopy plants, with an understory of ferns, tree ferns, and flowering plants. In this well-studied formation, P. maximus is only known from the upper part, which had more of a marine influence than the lower section. It was the most common hadrosaurine of this section, which was deposited about 75.5 million years ago. The Dinosaur Park Formation was also home to well-known dinosaurs like the horned Centrosaurus, Styracosaurus, and Chasmosaurus, fellow duckbills Gryposaurus, Corythosaurus, Lambeosaurus, and Parasaurolophus, tyrannosaurid Gorgosaurus, and armored Edmontonia and Euoplocephalus.
  The roughly contemporaneous Two Medicine Formation, home to P. maximus, is well known for its fossils of dinosaur nests, eggs, and young, produced by the hadrosaurids Hypacrosaurus stebingeri and Maiasaura, and the troodontid Troodon.  The tyrannosaurid Daspletosaurus, caenagnathid Chirostenotes, dromaeosaurids Bambiraptor and Saurornitholestes, armored dinosaurs Edmontonia and Euoplocephalus, hypsilophodont Orodromeus, and horned dinosaurs Achelousaurus, Brachyceratops, Einiosaurus, and Styracosaurus ovatus were also present. This formation was more distant from the Western Interior Seaway, and higher and drier than the Dinosaur Park Formation. The age of Prosaurolophus maximus remains from this formation is from approximately 75.5 to 74.0 million years ago.
  Prosaurolophus maximus itself lived in coastal floodplains and dined on conifer trees, implying that it was more likely a browser rather than a grazer.
caption: Depiction of the mega-herbivores in the Dinosaur Park Formation, P. maximus in the right distance
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