Preparing for Edmontosaurus

As Everything Dinosaur team members prepare to put together a video on their YouTube channel all about the dinosaur taxon Edmontosaurus, we have been busy exploring our archive and database and reviewing the original paper on this famous North American duck-billed dinosaur written by Lawrence Lambe.

The Title Page for the Scientific Paper on Edmontosaurus (Lambe 1917)

Edmontosaurus is announced to the world.
The title page from the original 1917 Edmontosaurus paper written by the eminent Canadian palaeontologist Lawrence Lambe.  The paper is entitled: “A new genus and species of crested hadrosaur from the Edmonton Formation of Alberta.”

Picture credit: Archive of the “Ottawa Naturalist”

The First Two Fossil Specimens Attributed to Edmontosaurus were found by Brothers

The genus Edmontosaurus was first erected by the Canadian palaeontologist Lawrence Lambe back in 1917, in an article published in the “Ottawa Naturalist”.  He described two specimens found in the Red Deer River area of Alberta, Canada, from a formation known at the time as the Edmonton Formation, but now referred to as the Horseshoe Canyon Formation.  The first specimen, the type specimen for this genus, consisting of a disarticulated skull plus extensive post cranial material was collected in 1912 by Levi Sternberg.  The second fossil specimen which Lambe also described in his 1917 paper, was collected by George Sternberg, Levi’s older brother, during fieldwork in 1916.

Lambe named this new “crestless hadrosaur” in recognition of the geological formation from whence these fossils came and not in honour of Edmonton, the capital city of the Province of Alberta. He did note the resemblance of the Edmontosaurus material to other duck-billed dinosaur fossils associated with the geologically younger Lance Formation of Dakota, these fossils once described as Diclonius mirabilis, were also referred to as Trachodon mirabilis and form part of an extensive fossil collection from the northern United States that went through a number of taxonomic revisions, leading eventually to the establishment of the species Edmontosaurus annectens.

The Illustration of the Skull of Edmontosaurus (1917)

A line drawing of the skull of Edmontosaurus.
The illustration of the type skull from the 1917 Edmontosaurus paper.  Illustration by Arthur Miles.  The paper described this lateral view of the skull as being in approximate 1:7 scale when it was reproduced in the Ottawa Naturalist.

Picture credit: Archive of the “Ottawa Naturalist” skull diagram attributed to Arthur Miles

Everything Dinosaur on YouTube

The Everything Dinosaur YouTube channel contains over 170 dinosaur and prehistoric animal-themed videos.  The Edmontosaurus video will be posted up shortly and team members encourage blog readers to subscribe to our YouTube channel.

A Life Reconstruction of the Hadrosaurid Edmontosaurus

Wild Safari Prehistoric World Emontosaurus model.
The new for 2020 Wild Safari Prehistoric World Edmontosaurus dinosaur model.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

The Everything Dinosaur website: Everything Dinosaur.

The model (pictured above), is the new for 2020 Edmontosaurus dinosaur model.  To view this figure and the rest of the models in the Wild Safari Prehistoric World range: Wild Safari Prehistoric World Models and Figures.

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