Dalinghosaurus longidigitus
Dalinghosaurus is an extinct genus of lizards, first described in 1998 by S.A. Ji of the Peking University Department of Geology. The type species is Dalinghosaurus longidigitus. It is known from the Early Cretaceous (Aptian) aged Yixian Formation of Liaoning, China.

Jonathan Chen · CC BY 4.0 · 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
- DalinghosaurusPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota
Time the record covers
At most 6.2 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 125.77 Mya and 119.57 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
4 occurrences of Dalinghosaurus longidigitus on record, most of them in the Early 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
4 occurrences- Early 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
1 formation
- Yixian Formation · Jehol Group4
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The named rock units Dalinghosaurus longidigitus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Dalinghosaurus longidigitus and its relatives
Early CretaceousWhere Dalinghosaurus longidigitus and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.
Found in the same rock
42 taxa- Yabeinosaurus robustus2 sites
- Akidolestes cifelli1 site
- Beipiaosaurus inexpectus1 site
- Chaoyangodens lii1 site
- Confuciusornis1 site
- Dalingheornis liweii1 site
- Eogranivora edentulata1 site
- Eomaia scansoria1 site
- Euenantiornithes1 site
- Euhelopus1 site
- Gegepterus changi1 site
- Gobiconodon zofiae1 site
- Grabauornis lingyuanensis1 site
- Graciliraptor lujiatunensis1 site
- Grallator cursorius1 site
- Hongshanornis longicresta1 site
- Incisivosaurus gauthieri1 site
- Jeholodens jenkinsi1 site
- Jeholosaurus shangyuanensis1 site
- Liaobatrachus beipiaoensis1 site
- Liaobatrachus grabaui1 site
- Liaobatrachus macilentus1 site
- Liaoceratops yanzigouensis1 site
- Longicrusavis houi1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Dalinghosaurus longidigitus, 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
3 references- The Early Cretaceous lizard Dalinghosaurus from China2
- An aggregation of lizard skeletons from the Lower Cretaceous of China1
- Postcranial anatomy of the Mesozoic Dalinghosaurus (Squamata): evidence from a new specimen of Western Liaoning1
Each of the 4 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 Dalinghosaurus longidigitus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Jonathan Chen
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Dalinghosaurus longidigitus was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
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 itDalinghosaurus through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Ji 1998