In the Dinosaur gallery on the second floor of the ROM, there is an almost complete dinosaur skeleton called Parasaurolophus walkeri. Parasaurolophus was a large duck-billed herbivorous dinosaur that lived approximately 76 million years ago. It became a superstar in the dinosaur world because of its extraordinary skull.
The skeleton was unearthed in Alberta in 1920 and to this day remains the best-preserved and most complete specimen of Parasaurolophus.
Nearly four meters long and less than three meters tall, the fossil is mounted on a square panel of cream-coloured plaster and placed in a large, thin white frame like a hanging decoration on a wall. The original sandstone on the periphery of the bone is surrounded by gypsum plaster. You can only see the left side of the dinosaur.
The front of the head is shaped like an almond, with a point on the left where its beak is. What makes this dinosaur so unique is the long, narrow, curved bone at the back of its skull, almost like a snorkel. The bone extension was about a meter long and 20 centimeters wide. It has a hollow tube inside, like a trombone.
What does this long protruding thing on its head do? This problem has puzzled experts for many years.
Today, they think it acts like an extra-long nasal passage. The nose is long on the face, extends to one meter behind the head, and then turns back to attach above the eyes. When breathing, air passes through the hollow passages up through its eyes, circulates in the long tube at the back of the skull, and then passes forward and into the throat to reach the lungs.
Parasaurolophus dinosaurs may also have used this hollow channel to talk to each other with low roars. These crests came in different sizes and shapes and may have helped these dinosaurs identify each other, learn each other's age, and even show off a bit.