Dorsetisaurus

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- Sits inside
- DorsetisauridaePBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota
Time the record covers
At least 29 million years on record.
The record covers at least 149.2 Mya to 119.57 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 154.8 Mya to 110.1 Mya.
15 occurrences of Dorsetisaurus on record, most of them in the Late 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
15 occurrencesThese 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
5 formations
- Morrison Formation7
- Lulworth Formation · Purbeck Group5
- Weald Clay Formation · Wealden Group1
- Alcobaça Formation1
- Dzunbain Formation1
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The named rock units Dorsetisaurus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Dorsetisaurus and its relatives
Late JurassicWhere Dorsetisaurus and its relatives were recorded in the Late Jurassic.
Found in the same rock
331 taxa- Goniopholis10 sites
- Mammalia8 sites
- Paramacellodus8 sites
- Anura6 sites
- Theropoda6 sites
- Camarasaurus5 sites
- Dryolestidae5 sites
- Plagiaulacidae5 sites
- Actinopterygii4 sites
- Becklesius4 sites
- Caudata4 sites
- Cteniogenys antiquus4 sites
- Glyptops4 sites
- Opisthias4 sites
- Parasaurillus pseudobtusus4 sites
- Pterosauria4 sites
- Squamata4 sites
- Allosaurus3 sites
- Amblotherium3 sites
- Batrachosauroididae3 sites
- Celtedens megacephalus3 sites
- Ceratodus3 sites
- Comotherium richi3 sites
- Crocodylia3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 14 sites for Dorsetisaurus, 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
11 references- Paleoecological analysis of the vertebrate fauna of the Morrison Formation (Upper Jurassic), Rocky Mountain region, U.S.A.2
- Lepidosaurian reptiles from the Purbeck Limestone Group of Dorset, southern England2
- New Jurassic mammals from Como Bluff, Wyoming, and the interrelationships of non-tribosphenic Theria2
- Coup d'oeil sur les Sauriens (lacertiliens) des couches de Purbeck (Jurassique supérieur d'Angleterre Résumé d'un Mémoire)2
- Upper Jurassic lizards from the Morrison Formation of Dinosaur National Monument, Utah1
- First report of amphibians and lizards from the Wealden (Lower Cretaceous) in England1
- Parviraptor (Squamata: Anguimorpha) and other lizards from the Morrison Formation at Fruita, Colorado1
- Some peculiarities of the Cretaceous and Palaeogene lizard faunas of the Mongolian people's Republic1
- Amphibians and reptiles from the Purbeck Limestone Formation (Upper Jurassic) of Dorset1
- Late Jurassic lizards from Como Bluff, Wyoming and their palaeobiogeographic significance1
- Upper Jurassic lizards from central Portugal1
Each of the 15 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 Dorsetisaurus
- 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
No 3D scan of Dorsetisaurus 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.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itDorsetisauridae through timeFormations of the Late JurassicThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Hoffstetter 1967