Anodontosaurus Pronunciation

Fun Facts

• ✓The name Anodontosaurus means 'toothless lizard' but that is only half true: it had a toothless beak at the front of its mouth and small peglike teeth further back, which confused early paleontologists who first examined the skull.
• ✓Anodontosaurus survived right up to the very end of the Cretaceous period, meaning it was alive during the final six million years before the asteroid impact that wiped out non-avian dinosaurs 66 million years ago.
• ✓The tail club of ankylosaurs like Anodontosaurus was formed from fused vertebrae and interlocking tendons that acted like a rigid handle, making the knob at the end a true biological wrecking ball that could generate forces of up to 4,000 newtons.
• ✓Anodontosaurus is known from two species: A. lambei, named in honor of paleontologist Lawrence Lambe, and A. inceptus, described decades later as scientists reanalyzed fossils from Alberta collections.
• ✓The Horseshoe Canyon Formation where Anodontosaurus lived was a lush coastal floodplain environment with forests, rivers, and seasonal flooding, meaning this armored giant shared its world with hadrosaurs, ceratopsians, and small feathered theropods.