Ammosaurus

Anchisaurus is a genus of basal sauropodomorph dinosaur. It lived during the Early Jurassic Period, and its fossils have been found in the red sandstone of the Upper Portland Formation, Northeastern United States, which was deposited from the Hettangian age into the Sinemurian age, between about 200 and 192 million years ago. Until recently it was classed as a member of Prosauropoda. The genus name Anchisaurus comes from the Greek αγχι anchi-; "near, close" + Greek σαυρος ; "lizard". Anchisaurus was coined as a replacement name for "Amphisaurus", which was itself a replacement name for Hitchcock's "Megadactylus", both of which had already been used for other animals.

Ammosaurus

Friedrich von Huene · Public Domain · via Wikipedia/Commons. 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
AnchisauridaePBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Prosauropoda
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Prosauropoda
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Prosauropoda
Length
5 mWikidata

Time the record covers

At most 1.9 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 201.4 Mya and 199.5 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Late Triassic — about 0 of 3 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 3 of 3 occurrencesEarly Jurassic201–201 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences201–201 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences201–201 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences201–201 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences201–201 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences201–201 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences201–201 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences201–201 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences201–201 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences201–200 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences200–200 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences200–200 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences200–200 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences200–200 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences200–200 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences200–200 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences200–200 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences200–200 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences200–200 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences200–199 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences201.9 Mya199 Mya

3 occurrences of Ammosaurus on record, most of them in the Early Jurassic. 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

3 occurrences

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

1 formation

McCoy Brook — 45.40°N, 64.22°W

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The named rock units Ammosaurus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Ammosaurus and its relatives

Early Jurassic

Where Ammosaurus and its relatives were recorded in the Early Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

3 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Ammosaurus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

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

3 references

Each of the 3 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 content1

Picture of Ammosaurus

Credit
Friedrich von Huene
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itAnchisauridae through timeFormations of the Early JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Marsh 1891