New research shows that the large-bodied ornithopod dinosaur Muttaburrasaurus langdoni from the mid-Cretaceous of Australia was no ordinary herbivore. With a toothed beak and a brain wired for smell, this species likely combined selective feeding with agile behavior. The findings also hint at life near a vast inland sea, where it may have consumed salty plants — and possibly even small animals — to survive.
Muttaburrasaurus langdoni. Image credit: Matt Herne.
Muttaburrasaurus langdoni lived around 96 million years ago near the ancient inland Eromanga Sea, in what is now Australia.
The holotype specimen was discovered in 1963 near the central western Queensland township of Muttaburra by local grazier Doug Langdon.
It is among the most skeletally complete ornithopod dinosaurs from the supercontinent Gondwana and is the fossil emblem of the state of Queensland.
In new research, University of New England paleontologist Matthew Herne and his colleagues examined different parts of the Muttaburrasaurus langdoni’s skull from a new specimen.
“Our discovery re-defines several assumptions made about the bumpy-nosed species, which is the fossil emblem of Queensland,” Dr. Herne said.
“The first astonishing discovery was that Muttaburrasaurus langdoni had teeth at the tip of its snout.”
“This was unexpected, because the beak (front part of the snout) of Muttaburrasaurus langdoni was thought to be toothless like many other well-known plant-eating species such as Iguanodon from Europe and the ‘duck-billed’ hadrosaurs, mostly found in the northern hemisphere.”
“But ornithischian dinosaurs of this size normally have beak-like snouts without teeth, with a good example of this being Triceratops.”
“Therefore, the beak of this Australian dinosaur wasn’t toothless and most likely a pickier eater.”
With its narrow toothy beak, Muttaburrasaurus langdoni would have browed for particular leaves and seeds and possibly even invertebrates for variety in their diet.
This also means that Muttaburrasaurus langdoni evolved from an earlier offshoot of the ornithopod dinosaurs from Camptosaurus and Iguanodon, when the earlier forms of the small-bodied ornithischians all had toothed beaks.
This new finding can help place Muttaburrasaurus langdoni more accurately on the dinosaur tree of life.
“The findings were made by extracting the brain imprint on the skull and the inner ears,” said Flinders University’s Professor Vera Weisbecker.
“We realized that its inner ear was more like dinosaurs that walked on two legs, like Tyrannosaurus rex, than others that spent more time on all fours.”
“So it’s possible that Muttaburrasaurus langdoni was a large herbivore walking and running on its hind legs when needed and used its front arms for support to crop food closer to the ground.”
The researchers also found that the characteristic ‘bulbous’ shape of Muttaburrasaurus langdoni’s nose is comprised of entirely new bones that are not found in other dinosaurs.
“Finding the new bones was exciting because they revealed two large complex air chambers above the main inhaled airflow which would have slowed down air as it breathed in,” Dr. Herne said.
“So we suspect that they indicate a very acute sense of smell, perhaps to help the animal find food, detect predators or assist in directional navigation.”
“This feature of the nose also matches their very large olfactory bulbs — among the largest of any dinosaur — which are the parts of the brain where smell is processed.”
“The use of advanced CT scanning, neutron scattering and synchrotron technologies provided detailed 3D digital models of the jaws and teeth,” added Dr. Joseph Bevitt, a researcher at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO).
The study was published online in the journal PeerJ.
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M.C. Herne et al. 2026. Cranial anatomy, palaeoneurology, palaeobiology and stratigraphic age of the large-bodied ornithopod, Muttaburrasaurus langdoni Bartholomai and Molnar, 1981, from the mid-Cretaceous of Australia. PeerJ 14: e20794; doi: 10.7717/peerj.20794
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