2.5" Edmontosaurus Fossil Jaw Maxilla Teeth Battery Cretaceous Dinosaur WY COA
Location: Lance Creek Formation, Wyoming (Private Land Origin)
Weight: 2.4 Ounces
Dimensions: 2.5 Inches Long, 1.6 Inches Wide, 0.9 Inches Thick
Comes with a Certificate of Authenticity.
The item pictured is the one you will receive.
This is a genuine fossil.
Edmontosaurus, meaning "lizard from Edmonton," is a hadrosaurid dinosaur that lived during the Maastrichtian stage of the late Cretaceous period, around 71 to 65 million years ago. Adults could grow up to nine meters long, with some of the bigger species reaching lengths of thirteen meters. Weighing about 3.5 tonnes, Edmontosaurus ranks among the largest of the hadrosaurids.
Edmontosaurus could pass the toughest foodstuffs back and forth across the teeth with its muscular, daring pouches.
To fit so many teeth into its mouth, they were packed into tight "banks" of up to sixty rows, and new teeth continually grew to replace lost teeth — analogous to a new shark. The bones of the higher jaw would flex outwards as the lower jaw came up, so the mandible could grind against it. Typical food would have built-in conifer needles, seeds, and twigs, and these have been established in the body cavities of fossilized Edmontosaurus. It was evidently a tree-browser.
The 1908 discovery in Wyoming was particularly remarkable in that paleontologists actually recovered fossilized imprints of Edmontosaurus' skin. The skin drying very quickly and fixing its shape into the mud must have left an impression. It is from these limitations that we know the skin was scaly and leathery, and the thigh muscle was under the skin of the body. This would have given the feeling that the leg left its body at the knee, and the whole thigh was under the skin. This only contributes to its resemblance to a duck. It also had several tubercles (bumps) on its neck and down its back and tail.
Edmontosaurus mainly walked on two legs but was definitely capable of moving on all fours. Its forelimbs were shorter than its hindlimbs, yet not so much that walking on four legs was impossible. The front feet had hooves on two fingers and weight-bearing pads similar to those in Camarasaurus, while the back feet featured two hooked toes. The bones in its lower limbs show that strong muscles supported both legs and feet. With a downward-curving spine at the shoulders, Edmontosaurus had a low, ground-level posture perfect for browsing. Though powerful, it moved slowly and had limited defenses, relying on sharp eyesight, hearing, and smell to avoid predators.
