Canada 4 Dollar Silver Coin 2007 Parasaurolophus - Dinosaurs
Series: The Dinosaurs Collection
Obverse: Susanna Blunt’s design of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
Reverse: Parasaurolophus.
Alberta's Parasaurolophus, a crested, duck-billed species, is featured on this $4 silver coin, to which a selective finish has been applied to the reverse design, to give the impression of a real stone fossil. As this process also creates variations in tone and colour, no two coins will be alike.
Mintage: 20000.
Composition: 99.99% pure silver.
Finish: proof (with selective aging effect on the reverse).
Weight: 15.87 g.
Diameter: 34 mm.
Edge: serrated.
Face value: 4 Canadian Dollars.
Artist: Kerri Burnett (reverse), Susanna Blunt (obverse).
Manufacturer: Royal Canadian Mint.
Series: The Dinosaurs Collection
Canada 4 Dollar Silver Coin 2007 Parasaurolophus - Dinosaurs
Parasaurolophus
Parasaurolophus (meaning "near crested lizard" in reference to Saurolophus) is a genus of ornithopod dinosaur that lived in what is now North America during the Late Cretaceous Period, about 76.5–74.5 million years ago. It was a herbivore that walked both as a biped and a quadruped. Three species are recognized: P. walkeri (the type species), P. tubicen, and the short-crested P. cyrtocristatus. Remains are known from Alberta (Canada), and New Mexico and Utah (United States). The genus was first described in 1922 by William Parks from a skull and partial skeleton found in Alberta.
Parasaurolophus was a hadrosaurid, part of a diverse family of Cretaceous dinosaurs known for their range of bizarre head adornments. This genus is known for its large, elaborate cranial crest, which at its largest forms a long curved tube projecting upwards and back from the skull. Charonosaurus from China, which may have been its closest relative, had a similar skull and potentially a similar crest. Visual recognition of both species and sex, acoustic resonance, and thermoregulation have been proposed as functional explanations for the crest. It is one of the rarer hadrosaurids, known from only a handful of good specimens.