Nanotyrannus lancensis

James St. John · CC BY 2.0 · 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
- NanotyrannusPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Theropoda
Time the record covers
At most 6.2 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 72.2 Mya and 66 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
4 occurrences of Nanotyrannus lancensis on record, most of them in the Late 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- Late 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
2 formations
- Hell Creek Formation · Montana Group3
- Lance Formation1
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The named rock units Nanotyrannus lancensis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Nanotyrannus lancensis and its relatives
Late CretaceousWhere Nanotyrannus lancensis and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.
Found in the same rock
66 taxa- Champsosaurus2 sites
- Dromaeosauridae2 sites
- Edmontosaurus annectens2 sites
- Lepisosteus2 sites
- Theropoda2 sites
- Thescelosaurus neglectus2 sites
- Tyrannosaurus rex2 sites
- Acheroraptor temertyorum1 site
- Acipenser albertensis1 site
- Adocus1 site
- Albertonykus1 site
- Amia fragosa1 site
- Ankylosauria1 site
- Ankylosaurus magniventris1 site
- Anzu wyliei1 site
- Apalone1 site
- Aspideretoides1 site
- Aves1 site
- Axestemys infernalis1 site
- Baenidae1 site
- Basilemys1 site
- Borealosuchus1 site
- Borealosuchus sternbergii1 site
- Brachychampsa1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Nanotyrannus lancensis, 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
4 references- The paleontology, geology and taphonomy of the Tooth Draw Deposit; Hell Creek Formation (Maastrictian), Butte County, South Dakota1
- Over 13,000 elements from a single bonebed help elucidate disarticulation and transport of an Edmontosaurus thanatocoenosis1
- Paleobiology and depositional setting of a Late Cretaceous vertebrate locality, Hell Creek Formation, McCone County, Montana1
- A new carnivorous dinosaur from the Lance Formation of Montana1
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 content2

Picture of Nanotyrannus lancensis
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- James St. John
- Licence
- CC BY 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
Smithsonian Open Access was 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 itNanotyrannus through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Gilmore 1946)