Echinodon

Echinodon is a genus of heterodontosaurid dinosaur that lived during the earliest Cretaceous of southern England and possibly western France in the Berriasian epoch. The first specimens were jaw bones named Echinodon becklesii by Sir Richard Owen in 1861, and since their original description only additional teeth have been discovered. The specific name honours collector Samuel Beckles who discovered the material of Echinodon and many other taxa from across England, while the genus name translates as "prickly tooth" in reference to the dental anatomy of the taxon.

Echinodon

Paul C. Sereno · CC BY 3.0 · 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
HeterodontosauridaePBDB
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 4 million years on record.

The record covers at least 145.06 Mya to 141 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 152.21 Mya to 137.05 Mya.

Late Jurassic — about 1 of 6 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 5 of 6 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous153–152 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences152–152 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences152–151 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences151–151 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences151–150 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences150–149 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences149–149 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences149–148 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences148–148 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences148–147 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences147–147 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences147–146 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences146–146 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences146–145 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences145–145 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences144–143 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences143–142 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences142–142 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences142–141 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences141–141 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences141–140 Mya — about 1 occurrence140–140 Mya — about 1 occurrence140–139 Mya — about 1 occurrence139–139 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences139–138 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences138–138 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences138–137 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences137–137 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences145.06 Mya141 Mya152.7 Mya136.6 Mya

6 occurrences of Echinodon 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

6 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

2 formations

Lulworth — 50.60°N, 1.97°WMorrison — 38.81°N, 108.32°W

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The named rock units Echinodon has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Echinodon and its relatives

Early Cretaceous

Where Echinodon and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

131 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Echinodon, 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

5 references

Each of the 6 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 Echinodon

Credit
Paul C. Sereno
Licence
CC BY 3.0
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 itHeterodontosauridae through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Owen 1861