I've been rather busy lately, but I was finally able to get back to the Idaho Museum of Natural History for more paleo doodling!
They've got a great cast of a Prosaurolophus skull, and I figured I needed more hadrosaurs in my life. I also wanted to illustrate a hadrosaur showing some of the more recent discoveries about this group's anatomy, such as the ridge along its back and a soft-tissue crest. Also important is the fact that hadrosaurs had a keratinized rhamphotheca (i.e. a beak) which allowed them to crop off bites of the tough vegetation that made up their diet. Any paleoart you see with a hadrosaur having a flat, kinda flabby-looking duck bill is inaccurate.
As a matter of fact (and I am aware this is purely personal opinion and most people don't care), it gets on my nerves when hadrosaurs are called "duck-billed" dinosaurs because in life, the front of their mouths would have more resembled a turtle beak. "Duck-bill" also conjures images of these guys wading through swamps and scooping up mushy plants, when it has been known for decades that they were fully terrestrial and ate conifers and the like. It's an inaccurate and outmoded nickname and I really think it's got to go.
Anyway, that's just me being pedantic. Again.
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