Lambeosaurus (SciiFii)

Lambeosaurus walkeri (name meaning "Walker's and Lambe's lizard") is a species of hadrosaurid dinosaur that originally lived about 75 million years ago, in the Late Cretaceous period (Campanian stage) of North America as an extinct species of Lambeosaurus, primarily Lambeosaurus lambei, and the genus itself was once extinct, but has since been brought back from extinction by SciiFii and introduced throughout the modern rainforests, wetlands, forests, open woodlands, grasslands, shrublands, and scrublands across North America to help boost biodiversity. Lambeosaurus walkeri is quite similar to Corythosaurus in everything but the form of the head adornment. Compared to Corythosaurus, the crest of Lambeosaurus walkeri is shifted forward, and the hollow nasal passages within are at the front of the crest and stacked vertically. It also can be differentiated from Corythosaurus by its lack of forking nasal processes making up part of the sides of the crest, which is the only way to tell juveniles of the two genera apart, as the crests take on their distinctive forms as the animals ages. Lambeosaurus walkeri is like other hadrosaurids, and can move on both two legs and all fours. It has a long tail stiffened by ossified tendons that prevents it from drooping. The hands have four fingers, lacking the innermost finger of the generalized five-fingered tetrapod hand, while the second, third, and fourth fingers are bunched together and bare hooves, allowing the animal to use the hands for support. The fifth finger is free and could be used to manipulate objects. Each foot have only the three central toes. The most distinctive feature, the crest, is different in the two well-known species. In Lambeosaurus walkeri, it has a hatchet-like shape when the dinosaur is full-grown, and is somewhat shorter and more rounded in females. The "hatchet blade" projects in front of the eyes, and the "handle" is a solid bony rod that juts out over the back of the skull. The "hatchet blade" has two sections: the uppermost portion is a thin bony "coxcomb" that grows out relatively late in life, when an individual nears adulthood; and the lower portion holds hollow spaces that are continuations of the nasal passages. The nasal passages in the crests have several functions, including housing salt glands, improving the sense of smell, use as an air trap, acting as a resonating chamber for making sounds, and being a method for different species and different sexes of the same species to recognize each other. The crest is used as a noisemaker and provides recognizable differences for different species and sexes, because the differing layouts of the nasal passages corresponding to the different crest shapes produces intrinsically different sounds. Large adult Lambeosaurus walkeri individuals have been estimated to be around 7 meters (23 feet) long. Lambeosaurus walkeri has a thin scaly skin with uniform, polygonal scutes distributed in no particular order on the neck, torso, and tail. As a hadrosaurid, Lambeosaurus walkeri is a large bipedal/quadrupedal herbivore, eating plants with a sophisticated skull that permits a grinding motion analogous to mammalian chewing. Its teeth are continually replaced and are packed into dental batteries that each contains hundreds of teeth, only a relative handful of which are in use at any time. It uses its beak to crop plant material, which is held in the jaws by a cheek-like organ. Feeding can be from the ground up to around 4 meters (13 feet) above. As noted by Bob Bakker, lambeosaurines have narrower beaks than hadrosaurines, and thus Lambeosaurus walkeri and its relatives can feed more selectively than their broad-beaked, crestless counterparts. The large size of the eye sockets and the presense of sclerotic rings in the eyes of Lambeosaurus walkeri allows acute vision and diurnal habits, showing that sight is important to these animals. The species' sense of hearing is also strong. Lambeosaurus walkeri is a social animal that can live in mixed-species herds consisting of other hadrosaurids such as Corythosaurus, Parasaurolophus, and several other hadrosaurids. Like other hadrosaurids, Lambeosaurus walkeri lays around 25-50 eggs in large nests and both parents care for the eggs and young. The conservation status of Lambeosaurus walkeri is Least Concern due to successful conservation efforts, the animal's wide range and its tolerance to many of the human activities.
Category:Animals
Category:Species
Category:SciiFii