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Aquatic Hadrosaurs

 Aquatic Hadrosaurs
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Aquatic Hadrosaurs
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For more than a century after their discovery in the 1850s, hadrosaurs were thought to have been semi-aquatic animals that lived in swamps and ate aquatic plants. There are a few factors that led to this (ultimately disproven) hypothesis. For one thing, their generic name "duck-billed dinosaurs" comes from their broad and flat rostral bones which are similar to a duck's bill (most prominently seen in Edmontosaurus, also known as Trachodon, Anatosaurus, or Anatotitan in older works), which may have led to the assumption that they fed on aquatic plants, although it's now known that the rostrum was not actually "duck-billed" in reality, because there was a squared-off keratinous beak attached in life. The interpretation also came about in part due to a sustained misinterpretation of hadrosaur teeth, believing they could not tackle anything sturdier than the softest water plants without breaking off; even when a hadrosaur was preserved with terrestrial vegetation in its gut, it was written off as merely being a possible dietary supplement. Better fossils revealed they actually had thousands of sophisticated grinding teeth packed tightly in their mouths (known as dental batteries) clearly used for pulverizing tough, fibrous vegetation, and would've been way over-engineered for soft water plants.
The hadrosaurs also lacked the horns and spikes of some of the other big herbivorous dinosaurs, leading to questions about how they defended themselves from predators, and the idea that they could escape by swimming into deeper water (where predators supposedly couldn't follow) seemed like a solution. Another thing is the presence of soft tissue that was believed to be webbing for the fingers but turned out to be a deflated fleshy pad, built for walking on dry land. It was also thought that they could have used their flattened tails for propulsion, but their vertebral columns were connected by ossified tendons, rendered their tails too stiff for any sort of paddling. Last, but not least, some hadrosaurs sported head crests that were hypothesized to have functioned as some kind of snorkel or air-storage space; however, they lacked a hole in the crest and the stored air wouldn't be enough for animals of their size, making both theories unlikely. Instead, their crests functioned like resonating chambers used to amplify their calls but may have also been used as a visual signal and for display.
As it is now known that they were terrestrial animals similar to modern ungulates, this is largely a Discredited Trope, but it may still pop up in media now and then.
A Sub-Trope of Artistic License – Paleontology. In older works, this overlaps with Science Marches On. For another trope pertaining to the general family hadrosaurs belong to, see Social Ornithopod. Compare Aquatic Sauropods, which addresses outdated aquatic depictions (although for different reasons) of herbivorous dinosaurs such as Diplodocus, Brachiosaurus or Brontosaurus.
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Dinosaur Train: Discussed briefly in the Corythosaurus-centered episode. When the main characters are learning about the function of its crest, Buddy asks Cory if it's used for breathing underwater, Don, due to being more of a Cloudcuckoolander, asks her if it's a crown, and Tiny asks her if it's related to the music they make. Cory denies the first two questions and affirms the third one.
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Serina: The scrunge is a member of a family of birds that evolved into cold-blooded lizard-like animals that has adapted to live in the expansive marsh known as the soglands by becoming a large, scaly omnivore with as blunt beak and escapes from predators by running on their hindlegs. It is even described as resembling "some fusion of a muskrat, and a rather outdated depiction of a duckbilled dinosaur".
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Darkwing Duck: In Extinct Possibility, the trio travel back to the Cretaceous and the first dinosaur they see is a cartoon Hadrosaur in a pond. Subverted when it turns out the hadrosaur is intelligent, wears clothes, lives on land and was just bathing at the time.
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Valley of the Dinosaurs: In "Test Flight", the group comes across an Edmontosaurus wading in a river, and it dives deep into the water when Lok scares it off.
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 Valley of the Dinosaurs
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Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous: Played straight by the Parasaurolophuses that live in the underground river area. Given that they also have bioluminescent patches that are wildly implausible, it's likely they were genetically modified to be semi-aquatic. The Ouranosaurus also qualify when they attack the campers' yacht note Though they aren't techically hadrosaurs, they are close relatives, belonging to the Hadrosauriforme group.
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 Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous
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Jurassic World Dominion: When the flaming locusts inadvertently cause a forest fire across the BioSyn Valley, several Parasaurolophus take to the water for protection from the blaze.
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 Jurassic World Dominion
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Prehistoric Planet.
Downplayed where not averted altogether with the actual hadrosaurs, which are generally shown as fully terrestrial, and the "Deserts" episode shows two hadrosaur species, Barsboldia and Secernosaurus, migrating across arid dunes in herds resembling those of wild camels. In the episode "Ice Worlds", a herd of unnamed hadrosaurs do cross a cold, rapidly-moving river during a spring thaw, and while even the juveniles seem like reasonably competent swimmers, it's not something they do lightly, finding the narrowest possible place to ford before entering the water. Even then, not all of them survive the crossing.
This trope is invoked in the "Freshwater" episode with the Deinocheirus, whose duck-like bill is specifically pointed out in the narration, and is depicted wading through the wetlands like an immense moose, chomping down water plants - but he's wading, not swimming, and Deinocheirus was not a hadrosaurnote It was actually part of the ornithomimimosaur group, including the much smaller Dromiceiomimus and Gallimimus. Still, the scene has a lot of the imagery you might expect in an older depiction of a hadrosaur feeding.
The dinosaur whose actual swimming ability is most heavily emphasized in the series is actually Tyrannosaurus rex, with the first episode opening on a father rex taking his kids to an island where they can hunt sea turtle hatchlings.
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Aquatic Hadrosaurs
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The "Rite of Spring" segment from Fantasia features several species of hadrosaurs, namely Parasaurolophus, Corythosaurus, Edmontosaurus, and Kritosaurus. They are depicted as swamp animals feeding on aquatic plants and run away in the water when a T. rex approaches.
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 Fantasia
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King Kong (2005): The corpse of a Ligocristus, a fictional lambeosaurine dinosaur, appears. According to the film's companion book, The World of Kong, it's noted to swim to small islets to lay its eggs during dry seasons. They are skilled swimmers, using this as a way to escape land predators. Possibly justified by the fact that it's not a prehistoric hadrosaur, and that most of the evolved dinosaurs were designed to evoke outdated reconstructions as an intentional Genre Throwback to the 1933 original.
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The The Land Before Time series is a major offender of this trope, as while Ducky and the other hadrosaurs featured in it do spend a lot of their time on land and browsing trees, they are also depicted as skilled swimmers and frequently shown eating water plants like a reptilian moose (which goes hand in hand with the series often merging antiquated Charles R. Knight-esque depictions of dinosaurs with more modern ones associated with the Dinosaur Renaissance). Ducky frequently utilizes her swimming skills to help her friends and her mother saves Spike from drowning in the eighth movie. This is also emphasized as their kin’s special talent (like pterosaurs being able to fly, ceratopsians being tough and ramming things, sauropods being gigantic and having whip-like tails, etc.), with “swimmer� even being the usual term used for duckbills in the series (the first film uses the term "bigmouth" but it didn't stick).
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Gigantosaurus: Inverted with Rocky, a Parasaurolophus. His friends can swim just fine, but he's shown to be afraid of water because he can't swim (although he later learns to). Interestingly, he has a hole in his crest, even though the lack of one is one of the very reasons why the theory about his species being aquatic was disproved.
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Walking with Dinosaurs: Briefly mentioned in "Death of a Dynasty", when it's stated that hadrosaurs evolved in lush swamps, subtly suggesting the idea that hadrosaurs were semi-aquatic. The Anatotitan in the episode itself are only ever shown on land, however.
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ARK: Survival Evolved: The Parasaurolophus are better swimmers than the other dinosaurs, using this as a means of protection.
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 ARK: Survival Evolved (Video Game)
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Go, Diego, Go!: In the episode "Diego's Great Dinosaur Rescue", Maia the Maiasaura is shown to be a good swimmer. In the episode, Alicia tells the viewers that "Maiasauras and a lot of dinosaurs swim", which unfortunately isn't true.
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 Go, Diego, Go!
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The New Dinosaurs: An Alternative Evolution features the Bricket, a lambeosaurine hadrosaur that lives in dense woodlands. However, as ticks and other sorts of parasites tend to live off from them, Brickets would often submerge themselves in watery bodies to wash said parasites away from them.note This wouldn't actually work in real life in the same way just bathing your dog with plain water doesn't get rid of its fleas; skin parasites can survive being submerged for a long time. It is also when submerged in water where Brickets mate with one another.
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 The New Dinosaurs: An Alternative Evolution
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64,000,000 Years Ago: The educational short film was made before the idea was discredited, and it depicts Edmontosaurus with webbed feet, paddle-like tails, duckbilled snouts, and fleeing from a Tyrannosaurus by diving into water.
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 64,000,000 Years Ago
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Il Était Une Fois...: In the first episode of Once Upon a Time... Man, an Edmontosaurus/Anatosaurus jumps into a lake in order to escape from a Tyrannosaurus.
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 Il était une fois...
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After Man: A Zoology of the Future: While no actual dinosaurs appear, the trope is referenced in the page about the hornheads (a group of future antelopes which have evolved a pseudo-beak structure from extensions of the horns for browsing coniferous branches). The water hornhead is a wading species that feeds on waterweeds with a particularly wide, duck-like snout which the text explicitly states "in its way of life, must surely resemble the hadrosaurs — the duckbilled dinosaurs of the latter part of the Age of Reptiles". Yeah, not so much (the book was written in the late 70s/early 80s, when the idea was still widespread).
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March of the Dinosaurs: Averted. Edmontosaurus are depicted as mostly terrestrial creatures. The herd only ends up in water by accident after the ice beneath them breaks under their weight, and while they are capable of swimming, the lake isn't a safe place for them because of the Mosasaurus.
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Tales of Kaimere: The spirit of this trope is reflected in the spirit drakes, a branch of thescelosaurs (who took over the niche of hadrosaurs in Ni'Kar after the Dynastic Extinction wiped out almost all hadrosaurs) that are proficient swimmers and can even walk on the river bottom for food. Notably, they are more predatory compared to other thescelosaurs and hadrosaurs of this trope, with fish and small games making up 50 percent of their diet. And for the larger drakes like the Jugashen, "small" game includes people.
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The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

 Aquatic Hadrosaurs
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Aquatic Animal Tropes
 Aquatic Hadrosaurs
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Artistic License – Biology
 King Kong (2005) / int_44efa20d
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Aquatic Hadrosaurs
 Tales of Kaimere / int_44efa20d
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Aquatic Hadrosaurs
 The New Dinosaurs: An Alternative Evolution / int_44efa20d
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Aquatic Hadrosaurs
 Planet of Dinosaurs / int_44efa20d
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 Walking with Dinosaurs / int_44efa20d
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Aquatic Hadrosaurs
 Fantasia / int_44efa20d
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Aquatic Hadrosaurs
 Gigantosaurus / int_44efa20d
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Aquatic Hadrosaurs
 Go, Diego, Go! / int_44efa20d
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Aquatic Hadrosaurs
 Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous / int_44efa20d
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Aquatic Hadrosaurs
 March of the Dinosaurs / int_44efa20d
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Aquatic Hadrosaurs
 64,000,000 Years Ago / int_44efa20d
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 The Land Before Time / int_44efa20d
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Aquatic Hadrosaurs