A duck-billed plant pulveriser - October 04, 2007

A "monster" dinosaur has been unveiled by Utah scientists. However, although its duck bill contained 300 teeth ready to chew and another 500 in reserve, Gryposaurus monumentensis was a confirmed herbivore (Daily Utah Chronicle, Deseret Morning News). "What you're looking at with Gryposaurus monumentensis is basically the Cretaceous version of a weed whacker," said Terry Gates, a Utah Museum of Natural History and University of Utah palaeontologist (Reuters).

The latter part of its name comes not from the beast's huge size, but from the area where it was found - the Kaiparowits Formation in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Roaming the area 75 million years ago, it would have been the largest dinosaur in the Kaiparowits fossil ecosystem, according to Alan Titus, paleontologist for the national monument (press release, research abstract). It was, says Scott Sampson, curator of the Utah Museum of Natural History, "like the Arnold Schwarzenegger of dinosaurs - it's all pumped up" (various, including AP).

Image: Utah Museum of Natural History

http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2007/10/a_duckbilled_plant_pulveriser.html