Giant duck-billed dinosaur was a chomping champ

IT WAS a 10-metre long munching machine that could chew its way through just about anything.

Gryposaurus monumentensis was a giant among duck-billed dinosaurs.

Its broad, wedge-shaped jaws were packed with 300 teeth, with hundreds more stored in reserve to replace any that were lost.

American palaeontologist Scott Sampson yesterday described the beast as the “Arnold Schwarzenegger” of its dinosaur family.

Scientists discovered its skull in a remote and rugged region of Utah known as the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

But the full significance of the 2003 find only became apparent two years later when experts examined the fossil in detail.

The creature lived 75 million years ago towards the end of the dinosaurs’ reign. Despite its size it would have had to beware of large predators such as Tyrannosaurus rex.

Gryposaurus monumentensis carried more than 800 teeth with which to slice up plant material.

Three hundred of these were available for use at any one time. The rest were potential replacements embedded in the jaw bone.

More than a dozen different kinds of dinosaur have been recovered from the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument.