Altirhinus

Altirhinus is a iguanodontian dinosaur that lived during the Early Cretaceous in Mongolia. Its name means "high snout". Altirhinus could walk on two while feeding and on all four while running. In 2010 the lenght was estimated at 6.5 meters long. The weight of this dinosaur was 1 ton. This big-nosed dinosaur had good sense of smell.

Altirhinus was discovered in 1981 during expeditions that were organized by Soviet and Mongolian scientists. Psittacosaurus and ankylosaurid Shamosaurus were also found there. The remains of this animal were originally referred to the species Iguanodon orientalis, which was first described in 1952. However, I. orientalis has since been shown to be fragmentary, nondiagnostic, and virtually indistinguishable from the European I. bernissartensis (Norman, 1996). 

As no features of I. orientalis are shared exclusively with the 1981 specimens, which are clearly distinguishable from Iguanodon, a new name for those specimens was required. British paleontologist David B. Norman named them Altirhinus kurzanovi in 1998.

The name was created from a Latin word, altus ("high") and a Greek word, ῥίς, rhis, genitive rhinos ("nose" or "snout"). There is one known species (A. kurzanovi), which honors Sergei Kurzanov, the influential Russian paleontologist who originally found the specimens in 1981.