Ankylosauridae

Uncredited · via Wikidata/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- Also called
- ankylosauridPBDB
- Sits inside
- EuankylosauriaPBDB
- Diet
- herbivorePBDB, for Ornithischia
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, gregariousPBDB, for Ornithischia
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Ornithischia
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Ornithischia
Time the record covers
At least 112 million years on record.
The record covers at least 184.2 Mya to 72.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 199.5 Mya to 66 Mya.
293 occurrences of Ankylosauridae 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
293 occurrences- Early Jurassicunder 1%
- Late Jurassicunder 1%
- Early Cretaceous8%
- Late Cretaceous91%
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
70 formations
- Dinosaur Park Formation · Belly River Group40
- Djadokhta Formation20
- Nemegt Formation18
- Horseshoe Canyon Formation · Edmonton Group17
- Oldman Formation · Belly River Group15
- Baynshire Formation13
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The named rock units Ankylosauridae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 46 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 14 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Ankylosauridae and its relatives
Late CretaceousWhere Ankylosauridae and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.
Found in the same rock
901 taxa- Hadrosauridae72 sites
- Theropoda49 sites
- Trionychidae34 sites
- Tyrannosauridae31 sites
- Crocodylia29 sites
- Baenidae27 sites
- Ceratopsidae26 sites
- Dinosauria25 sites
- Anura24 sites
- Multituberculata23 sites
- Chelydridae22 sites
- Champsosaurus21 sites
- Holostei20 sites
- Scapherpeton tectum20 sites
- Opisthotriton kayi19 sites
- Ornithomimidae19 sites
- Paronychodon19 sites
- Lepisosteus occidentalis18 sites
- Adocus17 sites
- Myledaphus bipartitus17 sites
- Saurornitholestes langstoni17 sites
- Richardoestesia gilmorei16 sites
- Teleostei16 sites
- Coriops amnicolus15 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 282 sites for Ankylosauridae, and this reads 240 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
139 references- Euoplocephalus tutus and the diversity of ankylosaurid dinosaurs in the Late Cretaceous of Alberta, Canada, and Montana, USA23
- Dinozavri severnoi Yevrazii: Novye dannye o sostave kompleksov, ekologii i paleobiogeografii [Dinosaurs of northern Eurasia: new data about assemblages, ecology, and paleobiogeography]23
- Revised systematics of the armoured dinosaur Euoplocephalus and its allies18
- Vertebrate microsite assemblages (exclusive of mammals) from the Foremost and Oldman Formations of the Judith River Group (Campanian) of southeastern Alberta: an illustrated guide12
- Review of Late Cretaceous ankylosaurian dinosaurs from the Grand Staircase region, southern Utah7
- Ankylosaurian tail clubs of middle Campanian to early Maastrichtian age from western North America, with description of a tiny club from Alberta and discussion of tail orientation and tail club function7
- The ankylosaurid dinosaurs of the Upper Cretaceous Baruungoyot and Nemegt formations of Mongolia6
- Unusual cranial and postcranial anatomy in the archetypal ankylosaur Ankylosaurus magniventris5
- Systematics, phylogeny and palaeobiogeography of the ankylosaurid dinosaurs5
- Dinosaur footprints from the Upper Cretaceous of Mongolia5
- Ankylosauridae (Dinosauria) from Mongolia5
- The morphology and systematics of Pinacosaurus4
Each of the 293 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. 127 further references are not listed. 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 content3

Picture of Ankylosauridae
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

Structured light scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Ankylosauridae indet. · dmnh:epv:150727
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- 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 itEuankylosauria through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Brown 1908