Albertosaurus sarcophagus

Canadian Museum of Nature · CC BY 4.0 · via GBIF. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- AlbertosaurusPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Theropoda
Time the record covers
At most 18 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 83.6 Mya and 66 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
17 occurrences of Albertosaurus sarcophagus on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
17 occurrences- Late Cretaceous100%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
3 formations
- Horseshoe Canyon Formation · Edmonton Group15
- Scollard Formation · Edmonton Group1
- Oldman Formation · Belly River Group1
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The named rock units Albertosaurus sarcophagus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Albertosaurus sarcophagus and its relatives
Late CretaceousWhere Albertosaurus sarcophagus and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.
Found in the same rock
51 taxa- Atrociraptor marshalli3 sites
- Ceratopsidae3 sites
- Acipenseridae2 sites
- Anodontosaurus lambei2 sites
- Dromaeosaurinae2 sites
- Hadrosauridae2 sites
- Ornithomimidae2 sites
- Troodon2 sites
- Albertavenator curriei1 site
- Albertonykus borealis1 site
- Amiidae1 site
- Anchiceratops ornatus1 site
- Ankylosauridae1 site
- Anura1 site
- Avialae1 site
- Belonostomus1 site
- Borioteiioidea1 site
- Champsosaurus1 site
- Chelydridae1 site
- Coriops1 site
- Crocodylia1 site
- Cyclurus1 site
- Edmontosaurus regalis1 site
- Estesesox foxi1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 17 sites for Albertosaurus sarcophagus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
9 references- A history of Albertosaurus discoveries in Alberta, Canada6
- Baby tyrannosaurid bones and teeth from the Late Cretaceous of western North America 12
- Tyrannosaurs from the Late Cretaceous of western Canada2
- Tyrannosaurus and other Cretaceous carnivorous dinosaurs2
- A problematic tyrannosaurid (Dinosauria: Theropoda) skeleton and its implications for tyrannosaurid diversity in the Horseshoe Canyon Formation (Upper Cretaceous) of Alberta1
- Albertosaurus (Dinosauria: Theropoda) material from an Edmontosaurus bonebed (Horseshoe Canyon Formation) near Edmonton: clarification of palaeogeographic distribution1
- Gigantism and comparative life-history parameters of tyrannosaurid dinosaurs1
- Possible evidence of gregarious behavior in tyrannosaurids1
- Albertosaurus arctunguis, a species of therapodous dinosaur from the Edmonton Formation of Alberta1
Each of the 17 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content2

Picture of Albertosaurus sarcophagus
- Source
- GBIF
- Credit
- Canadian Museum of Nature
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Credit
- Iuuujh7j6y6jii
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itAlbertosaurus through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Osborn 1905