September 13, 2012 Olorotitan was one of the most elegant
dinosaurs of all time. The 26-foot-long hadrosaur, found in the
Late Cretaceous rocks of eastern Russia, had the typical deep
tail, beefy legs and slender arms of its kin, but a fan-shaped
crest jutting out of the back of the dinosaur’s skull gave it a
striking profile. As with its North American cousins
Corythosaurus and Lambeosaurus, the hollow head ornament is what
makes this dinosaur stand out. Paleontologist Pascal Godefroit
of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences and
colleagues initially described Olorotitan in 2003. Now, in Acta
Palaeontologica Polonica, Godefroit joins co-authors Yuri
Bolotsky of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Ivan Bolotsky of
Jilin University in China in a thorough assessment of the
hadrosaur’s osteology and relationships. The study is based on a
mostly complete skull and skeleton–the dinosaur is primarily
missing its hands and feet, perhaps because scavengers consumed
them before the Olorotitan was buried, but