Charonosaurus

Filed under Cretaceous dinosaurs · Types of Dinosaurs editorial team

Order: Ornithischia · Suborder: Ornithopoda · Infraorder: Hadrosauridae · Family: Hadrosauridae

Charonosaurus was a massive duck-billed dinosaur that lived during the Late Cretaceous period, its fossils recovered from the border region between China and Russia. Its name, meaning "Charon's lizard," honours Charon, the ferryman of the dead in Greek mythology — a reference to the river beside which its remains were discovered. Belonging to the family Hadrosauridae, it is classified as a lambeosaurine hadrosaur closely related to Parasaurolophus, and it likely bore a long, hollow crest projecting from its skull, though direct evidence of the crest's full form remains a matter of study.

Among the largest members of its group, Charonosaurus reached lengths of roughly 10 to 13 metres, placing it at the upper end of hadrosaur size. Like other members of its family, it was a dedicated herbivore, using a wide, flat beak to crop plant material and processing tough vegetation with densely packed rows of grinding teeth known as tooth batteries.

The discovery of Charonosaurus adds meaningful detail to the picture of large hadrosaur diversity across eastern Asia during the Late Cretaceous, demonstrating that the region supported impressive and varied populations of these successful plant-eating dinosaurs well into the final chapter of the Mesozoic Era.

More Cretaceous-period dinosaurs →

Reference background: Natural History Museum, London — Dinosaurs; Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History — Dinosaurs; American Museum of Natural History — Dinosaurs & Fossils. Figures are typical published ranges; taxonomy follows the source era and modern consensus is noted where it differs. See our sources & fact-check policy.

Related dinosaurs

Other dinosaurs from the Hadrosauridae family.