CORYTHOSAURUS

Corythosaurus casuarius

Etymology: Cassowary helmeted lizard

Nickname: "Cory"

Classification: Ornithopoda, Hadrosauridae

Diet: Herbivore

Size: 7.7 to 9 meters long

Provenance: Dinosaur Park Formation, Alberta, Canada - Late Cretaceous, Campanian stage, 76.5 - 75.7 million years ago

Movie appearances: Jurassic Park III (2001)

Corythosaurus casuarius is an hadrosaurid ornithopod dinosaur that lives in the Late Cretaceous period. It has jaws filled with batteries of teeth to process large amounts of food at once. Male Corythosaurus use their large head crests to intimidate other males in territorial and sexual disputes.

About 97% of the genome of Corythosaurus was already mapped before Hurricane Clarissa striked Isla Nublar and Sorna, in 1993. It was a species planned for inclusion in Isla Nublar's Jurassic Park, being represented in a mural in the Vistor Center's restaurant. Corythosaurus was eventually resurrected in Isla Sorna, however in an illegal and secretive manner, as it was after Clarissa striked the island, and without the knowledge of InGen or Masrani higher ups, and therefore they were released into the wilderness of Sorna, and it is unknown if they retained the lysine contigency that affected most dinosaurs from Sorna. It is unclear how many Corythosaurus were living in Sorna, but they were residing in the jungles of the northeast side of the island. In 2001, a group of stranded survivors, while being chased by Deinonychus, ran through a mixed herd of Parasaurolophus and immature Corythosaurus. Corythosaurus has since been revealed to have been subject to cruelty, but it is unknown if any of these dinosaurs are still alive today.

FILM vs. REALITY

The film Corythosaurus has some distinctions from the real life animal. Although they're generally of the same size and appearance, the posture of the real life animal was more horizontal, with the tail running in a more paralel position above the ground, in opposition with the more droopy tail of the one from the film that nearlt touches the ground. The hands of the Corythosaurus are depicted as resembling small mittens in the film, but the real life animal likely had hoof-like nails to help it walk around. The general silhouette of the real life Corythosaurus was also much more robust, making it appear a much bigger animal than the one in the film, which appears more gracile. The crest of Corythosaurus, in the film, is relatively well reconstructed, but fossils show the crest could have extended a bit behind the skull, giving it less of a semi-circular shape.

The film Corythosaurus is depicted as almost entirely bipedal. However, the front limbs of the real life animal were particularly well specialized for supporting its weight on the ground, and so it would have used them to support itself when grazing or browsing on low vegetation, or when running. Bipedality, however, might have probably been still applied when the animal was walking at low speeds or rearing to feed on tall vegetation. Corythosaurus is depicted living alongside Parasaurolophus in the film, reflecting how these two hadrosaurids could be found in the same fossil formations. In the film, the Corythosaurus are depicted with the size of full grown adults, even though they're canonically just a few years old. In real life, a Corythosaurus of this size would have been a juvenile or subadult, but nevertheless there is evidence of other lambeosaurine hadrosaurids living in segregated herds of juveniles/subadults, so it would be possible for such to live in the wild after at least a period of parental care. Consistently, it would be expected for young Corythosaurus to be more bipedal than the larger adults.