Incisivosaurus
Incisivosaurus is a genus of small, probably herbivorous theropod dinosaurs from the early Cretaceous Period of what is now the People's Republic of China. The first specimen to be described, IVPP V13326, is a skull that was collected from the lowermost levels of the Yixian Formation in the Sihetun area, near Beipiao City, in western Liaoning Province. The most significant, and highly unusual, characteristic of this dinosaur is its apparent adaptation to an herbivorous or omnivorous lifestyle. It was named for its prominent, rodent-like front teeth, which show wear patterns commonly found in plant-eating dinosaurs. The specific name gauthieri honors Dr. Jacques Gauthier, a pioneer of the phylogenetic method of classification.

Jaime A. Headden ( User:Qilong ) · 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
- OviraptorosauriaPBDB
- Diet
- omnivorePBDB, for Oviraptorosauria
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, depth=surfacePBDB, for Oviraptorosauria
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Oviraptorosauria
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Oviraptorosauria
Time the record covers
At most 26 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 125.77 Mya and 100.5 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
4 occurrences of Incisivosaurus 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
3 formations
- Fuxin Formation · Jehol Group2
- Yixian Formation · Jehol Group1
- Shahai Formation1
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The named rock units Incisivosaurus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Incisivosaurus and its relatives
Early CretaceousWhere Incisivosaurus and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.
Found in the same rock
35 taxa- Dromaeosauridae3 sites
- Euhelopus2 sites
- Ankylosauridae1 site
- Campeloma1 site
- Cicatricosisporites australiensis1 site
- Cypridea1 site
- Dalinghosaurus longidigitus1 site
- Eobaataridae1 site
- Gobiconodon zofiae1 site
- Graciliraptor lujiatunensis1 site
- Heishanlestes changi1 site
- Heishanobaatar triangulus1 site
- Iguanodontoidea1 site
- Jeholosaurus shangyuanensis1 site
- Kielanobaatar badaohaoensis1 site
- Liaoceratops yanzigouensis1 site
- Meemannodon lujiatunensis1 site
- Mei long1 site
- Meiconodon lii1 site
- Neoceratopsia1 site
- Nodosauridae1 site
- Phoenicopsis1 site
- Piceaepollenites sp.1 site
- Probaicalia sp.1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Incisivosaurus, 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
2 references- Isolated dinosaur teeth from the Lower Cretaceous Shahai and Fuxin formations of northeastern China3
- An unusual oviraptorosaurian dinosaur from China1
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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content2
Picture of Incisivosaurus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Jaime A. Headden ( User:Qilong )
- Licence
- CC BY 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Incisivosaurus gauthieri · ivpp:v:13326
Smithsonian Open Access was 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 itOviraptorosauria through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Xu et al. 2002