Aquilarhinus

Aquilarhinus palimentus here was an early hadrosaurid dinosaur known from the Late Cretaceous of Texas, USA, living about 80 million years ago. Around 5m long (16″5″), it had a prominent humped nose that seems to have been an evolutionary prelude to the larger and much more elaborate crests found in later hadrosaurs.

It also had an unusually wide and shovel-like beak, unlike any other known hadrosaur, which was probably a specialization for a different diet than its relatives. Since it lived along coastal marshlands it may have used its broad jaws to scoop up large mouthfuls of soft vegetation – or, much like the “shovel-tusker” proboscideans that were once thought to have a similar lifestyle, it may actually have been doing something else entirely with that beak.