29. Swimming Corythosaurus, 1916
Until
1910 or so, most hadrosaur specimens looked more or less alike, with
similar flat, duck-bill-shaped heads, which was why paleontologists had
trouble trying to decide whether they were dealing with one genus or
several, and why there was such a confusion of names. Then, rather
suddenly, a great variety of hadrosaurs, with unmistakably different head
crests, began to be recovered from the Red Deer River in Alberta. Foremost
in the hunt was Barnum Brown, who discovered Kritosaurus,
Saurolophus, and Prosaurolophus in short order. But the
prize specimen found by Brown was a skeleton of what he called
Corythosaurus, after the helmet-shaped crest on the skull. The
first specimen was found in 1912 and proved to be virtually complete and
articulated, with even some skin impressions on one side. Although Brown
published his find initially in 1914, we exhibit his second paper, because
it includes a life restoration of Corythosaurus in its natural
habitat (see illustration above).
Brown thought Corythosaurus was a swimmer, for interesting
reasons. He said that if you place the type specimen in a horizontal
position, it looks like it is swimming (see second illustration at
left). 
And
indeed, the swimming figure in the restoration has exactly the same pose
as the fossil. It is doubtful that Brown really thought that a
Corythosaurus, having swum through life, would maintain this same
posture as it died and awaited fossilization. Nevertheless, he looked at
the fossil and saw a swimmer. The concept so delighted Charles H.
Sternberg that he used this very drawing as the frontispiece for his book,
Hunting Dinosaurs, that was published the next year (see
item 28).
Source:Brown, Barnum. "Corythosaurus casuarius: Skeleton, musculature and epidermis," in: Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, vol. 35 (1916), pp. 709-716. This work is on display as exhibit item 29.
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