Haplocanthosaurus

Haplocanthosaurus is a genus of diplodocoid sauropod dinosaur. Two species, H. delfsi and H. priscus, are known from incomplete fossil skeletons. They lived during the Late Jurassic, 155 to 152 million years ago in North America. The type species is H. priscus, named in 1903 John Bell Hatcher , and the referred species H. delfsi was discovered by a young college student named Edwin Delfs in Colorado, United States and described by Jack McIntosh and Michael Williams in 1988. Haplocanthosaurus specimens have been found in the lowermost layer of the Morrison Formation, along with Hesperosaurus mjosi, Brontosaurus yahnahpin, and Allosaurus jimmadseni.

Haplocanthosaurus

Erik Drost · CC BY 2.0 · 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
DiplodocoideaPBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Sauropoda
Life habit
ground dwelling, gregariousPBDB, for Sauropoda
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Sauropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Sauropoda
Length
21.5 mWikidata

Time the record covers

At most 12 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 154.8 Mya and 143.1 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Late Jurassic — about 11 of 11 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 0 of 11 occurrences155–154 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences154–154 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences154–154 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences154–153 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences153–153 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences153–152 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences152–152 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences152–151 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences151–151 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences151–151 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences151–150 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences150–150 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences150–149 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences149–149 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences149–149 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences149–148 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences148–148 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences148–147 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences147–147 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences147–146 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences146–146 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences146–146 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences146–145 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences145–145 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences145–144 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences144–144 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences144–143 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences143–143 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences155.3 Mya142.6 Mya

11 occurrences of Haplocanthosaurus 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

11 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

Morrison — 38.54°N, 105.22°WMorrison — 42.16°N, 105.91°WMorrison — 43.65°N, 106.78°WMorrison — 44.09°N, 106.78°WMorrison — 39.20°N, 106.93°WMorrison — 40.44°N, 109.30°WMorrison — 40.45°N, 109.43°WMorrison — 38.58°N, 108.40°WMorrison — 46.84°N, 108.77°W

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

Haplocanthosaurus and its relatives

Late Jurassic

Where Haplocanthosaurus and its relatives were recorded in the Late Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

84 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 10 sites for Haplocanthosaurus, 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

9 references

Each of the 11 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 Haplocanthosaurus

Credit
Erik Drost
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Haplocanthosaurus 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 itDiplodocoidea through timeFormations of the Late JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Hatcher 1903