Neornithischia
Neornithischia is a clade of the dinosaur order Ornithischia. It is the sister group of the Thyreophora within the clade Genasauria. Neornithischians are united by having a thicker layer of asymmetrical enamel on the inside of their lower teeth. The teeth wore unevenly with chewing and developed sharp ridges that allowed neornithischians to break down tougher plant food than other dinosaurs.

Source: Agsftw Derivative: User:MathKnight · CC BY-SA 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
- OrnithischiaPBDB
- 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 155 million years on record.
The record covers at least 227.3 Mya to 72.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 237 Mya to 61.66 Mya.
5,398 occurrences of Neornithischia 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
5,398 occurrences- Late Triassicunder 1%
- Early Jurassic3%
- Middle Jurassicunder 1%
- Late Jurassic5%
- Early Cretaceous24%
- Late Cretaceous68%
- Paleoceneunder 1%
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
595 formations
- Hell Creek Formation · Montana Group344
- Dinosaur Park Formation · Belly River Group327
- Lance Formation · Montana Group168
- Fruitland/Kirtland Formation149
- Morrison Formation145
- Kirtland Formation136
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Neornithischia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 571 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 405 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Neornithischia and its relatives
Late CretaceousWhere Neornithischia and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.
Found in the same rock
1,433 taxa- Theropoda64 sites
- Hadrosauridae47 sites
- Trionychidae35 sites
- Crocodylia27 sites
- Teleostei27 sites
- Ceratopsidae26 sites
- Ornithopoda25 sites
- Anura24 sites
- Myledaphus bipartitus24 sites
- Testudines24 sites
- Lepisosteus occidentalis23 sites
- Mammalia21 sites
- Scapherpeton tectum21 sites
- Baenidae20 sites
- Belonostomus longirostris19 sites
- Chelydridae19 sites
- Dinosauria19 sites
- Opisthotriton kayi19 sites
- Dromaeosauridae18 sites
- Amiidae17 sites
- Ankylosauridae16 sites
- Ceratopsia16 sites
- Hadrosaurinae16 sites
- Ornithomimidae16 sites
The Paleobiology Database records at least 1,568 sites for Neornithischia, and this reads 240 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
1,927 references- Paleontological survey, resource assessment, and mitigation plan for the Bisti-Star Lake Area, northwestern New Mexico174
- Dinozavri severnoi Yevrazii: Novye dannye o sostave kompleksov, ekologii i paleobiogeografii [Dinosaurs of northern Eurasia: new data about assemblages, ecology, and paleobiogeography]119
- Hadrosaurian dinosaurs of North America109
- Vertebrate biostratigraphy of the Hell Creek Formation in southwestern North Dakota and northwestern South Dakota99
- Fossil Vertebrate Collections69
- Stratigraphic distribution of hadrosaurids in the Upper Cretaceous Fruitland, Kirtland, and Ojo Alamo formations, San Juan Basin, New Mexico61
- Diversity of Late Cretaceous dinosaurs from Mexico60
- Stratigraphy and paleontology of the Cloverly Formation (Lower Cretaceous) of the Bighorn Basin area, Wyoming and Montana57
- The paleogeographic and stratigraphic distribution of ceratopsids (Ornithischia) in the Upper Judith River Group of western Canada55
- The hadrosaurian record from Mexico50
- Vertebrate microsite assemblages (exclusive of mammals) from the Foremost and Oldman Formations of the Judith River Group (Campanian) of southeastern Alberta: an illustrated guide47
- Vertebrate faunal changes through Lancian and Puercan time in southern Wyoming45
Each of the 5,398 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. 1,915 further references are not listed. 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 Neornithischia
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Source: Agsftw Derivative: User:MathKnight
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Neornithischia 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 itOrnithischia through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Cooper 1985)