'Good Mother Lizard': Largest Dinosaur Population Growth Study Reveals How Maiasaura Lived

The Maiasaura, also known as the "good mother lizard," underwent one of the largest lifestyle studies about the creature's life and death. After decades of research and studies, Maiasaura was classified as having the most detailed life history of all dinosaurs.

Holly Woodward, a paleontology expert, led the study in which she and colleagues examined samples of dinosaur fossils that were collected from an immense bone bed in Western Montana.

With about of 50 shin bones to study, Maiasaura samples were used in the study to examine the microstructure of the fossil bones. A detailed analysis of the samples enabled the researchers to determine their development and growth, growth rate, the composition of their diets and digestive processes, age of death and sexual development.

In addition, the researchers were also able to identify the Maiasaur's bone development and concentration along with the time span that the species underwent to reach its adult phase. The researchers were able to tell how the Maiasaura species had bird-level growth rates throughout most of its life, despite its bone tissue being similar to many large, modern day warm-blooded mammals.

"By looking within the bones, and by synthesizing what previous studies revealed, we now know more about the life history of Maiasaura than any other dinosaur and have the sample size to back up our conclusions," Woodward said, in a news release. 

They found that the Maiasaura reached its sexual maturity level during the third year of its life and that in the eighth year, an adult Maiasaura weighed about 2.3 tons. The struggle to survive was much harder on for the young Maiasaura than the old; those under a year old had an 89.9 percent mortality rate while 8 years and older experienced a 44.4 percent mortality rate.

Maiasaura nested in colonies, where their environment was warm and experienced long dry seasons due to droughts - thus their diets were made up of mostly rotting wood.

With future research, the study authors hope to use Maiasaura bone fossils as models to compare other dinosaur specie samples to in future studies. 

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