Edmontosaurus Facts for Kids
ed-MON-toh-SORE-us · its name means “Edmonton lizard”
A big duck-billed dinosaur with a wide, flat beak and many teeth.
- 📏 39 to 49 ft12 to 15 m1 long
- ⚖️ 5 tons4.5 tonnes1
- 🕰️ 66 to 73 million years ago66 to 73 million years ago1
- 🍽️ plants
Edmontosaurus was a duck-billed dinosaur. It had a wide, flat beak. It walked on two legs or four and ate plants.
Edmontosaurus had a wide, flat beak like a duck's, and rows and rows of teeth farther back in its mouth for grinding plants. It could walk on two legs or on four. Some fossils even show the pattern of its skin: small, bumpy scales.
Edmontosaurus lived at the very end of the age of dinosaurs, in the same places as T. rex and Triceratops. It is named after the Edmonton area of Alberta, Canada, where some of its fossils were found. Fossils of many have been found together, so scientists think it lived in big herds. A famous fossil from North Dakota, nicknamed Dakota, still has marks of its skin, which shows us how its body looked.
Every dinosaur number is scientists’ best guess from bones, so each one says where it came from.
How big was Edmontosaurus?
Edmontosaurus in numbers
| Length (nose to tail) | 39 to 49 ft12 to 15 m1estimate |
|---|---|
| Height at the hips | no checked number yet |
| Weight | 5 tons4.5 tonnes1scientists' estimate |
| When it lived | 66 to 73 million years ago66 to 73 million years ago1about |
| What it ate | leaves, twigs and pine needles |
| Fossils found in | western North America, including Montana, Wyoming, the Dakotas and Alberta in Canada |
| What kind | an ornithopod: a beaked plant-eater that walked on two legs or four |
Wow!
- Its mouth had rows and rows of teeth for grinding plants.
- Fossil skin marks show it had small, bumpy scales.
- It lived at the same time and in the same places as T. rex.
🦴 Edmontosaurus’s bones
Books about Edmontosaurus, free at the library
Ask a grown-up to tap the button: it shows where to borrow a book about Edmontosaurus for free.
Where was the land back then?
The continents were in different places when Edmontosaurus lived, 66 to 73 million years ago. Open Planet Earth, pick Drifting continents, and slide back in time to see where the land was.
Its neighbours in time
Where these numbers come from
- USDA Forest Service, Dakota Prairie Grasslands, checked 30 October 2026.
- Wikidata, Edmontosaurus (Q309466), checked 30 October 2026.
To read more: the Natural History Museum’s Dino Directory (see also, not copied).