Lambeosaurines

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A subfamily of crested duck-billed dinosaurs from the Late Cretaceous period, known for their hollow head crests
2. The group of hadrosaurid herbivores distinguished by hollow, crest-like skull ornaments and found in North America and Asia
3. Plant-eating dinosaurs belonging to a crested branch of the duck-billed hadrosaurs, named for the lambeosaurus genus

Etymology: Lambeosaurines take their name from Lawrence Lambe, a Canadian palaeontologist who described the first crested duck-billed dinosaur skulls from the Late Cretaceous rocks of Alberta. The genus Lambeosaurus was named in his honour, and the subfamily name was formed from that genus name with the suffix "-ine", the standard ending for members of a subfamily. The plural form simply refers to the group of animals in that subfamily. The word is therefore a modern scientific coinage, built from a person's name rather than from ancient roots. Its base, Lambeosaurus, combines Lambe with the Greek "sauros", meaning lizard, so the whole name honours a palaeontologist while describing a reptile.