The last time someone found a fossilized skull of the rarefied coinage of the dinosaur Parasaurolophus was 97 eld ago . While not a uncouth find , they ’re easy enough to place thanks to the gravid empty tube that grow on their head . This structure has been a seed of some disarray for palaeontologist who until now had little in the way of caliber specimens to work from , but this unexampled find is so well preserve they ’ve finally had the chance to take a good look .
The specimen belong toParasaurolophus cyrtocristatuswas recovered in New Mexico and is thought to be around 75 million years old . At this time , slap belt in the center of the Late Cretaceous , North America was divided by a shallow sea . On land roamed a wealthiness of animals with unequaled headway morphology , including dinosaur with duckbills and horn , as well as early tyrannosaurs .
Parasaurolophus had a gonzo , trumpet - like nasal passageway for which science has coined the term “ tube crest ” . Despite look nothing like its duckbilled contemporaries , this new specimen has revealed that they actually maturate in a similar elbow room .
" ideate your olfactory organ develop up your nerve , three pes behind your school principal , then ferment around to attach above your eye , ” said Terry Gates , a paleontologist from North Carolina State University in astatement . “ Parasaurolophus breathed through eight foot of tube before atomic number 8 ever give its school principal . ”
The accurate design of this ostensibly illogical nasal consonant cavity has been a subject of debate for about as long as it took scientists to recover another Parasaurolophus specimen . Some suggestions have included that it play like a variety of snorkel or that these dinosaurs were A-one sniffers , but with this unexampled dodo to forge from the researchers now retrieve these crests functioned in the main as sound cavity resonator used to pass within their own mintage .
The partial skull was discovered in 2017 while explore the badlands of northwestern New Mexico . Only a tiny lot of the skull was seeable , so researchers were surprised when they found the intact crest as they cautiously chiseled the skull from the sandstone .
" The saving of this new skull is spectacular , finally reveal in detail the pearl that make up the crest of this amazing dinosaur sleep with by virtually every dinosaur - haunt kid , " said Joe Sertich , conservator of dinosaurs at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science .
