Living: With its wide, duck-like beak, its powerful jaws and lines of molars, the Maiasaura is a typical duck-beaked-lizard. It is placed in the family Hadrosauridae because of its missing head-crest, and in the undergroup Brachylophosaurs because of its solid, horn-like crest above the eyes and the triangle-shaped projection on the cheekbones.
Maiasaura was first found in 1978, and has since been found in thousands. These dinosaurs walked in herds between the high lands of Rocky Mountains and the sea down through the northern USA. The founds indicate, that they wandered in-groups with over ten thousand Maiasaurs together. As the seasons changed, the dinosaurs walked either north or south through the lands. They held them tight together, but the number of dinosaurs alone could easily take down an attacking Tyrannosaurus. They dug mud-nest with up to 2 m. (6 ft.) in diameter and lied over 20 oval eggs. The heat from the rotten plants surrounding the nests helped the eggs to hatch. The mothers were always near the nests to protect them. As most birds, the mothers also came with food to the young dinosaurs. The worn-out teeth and undeveloped bones on some Maiasaur-fossils, shows that they ate solid food, before they were capable to walk along on their own.
Nest: It seems that the dinosaurs had been in the nest for such a long time, that they, as they grew, ran around and crushed the other non-hatched eggs.
Head: A Maiasaura-head looks almost like a horse-head, but with a projection made of bone. The males have possibly fought with this.
Young and vulnerable: Found skeletons show a young Ornithopod being attacked by a hungry Troodon. Agile and light Theropods might have invaded a Maiasaura-colony and taken the defense-less young dinosaurs.
