Ornithomimus

Ornithomimus is a genus of ornithomimid theropod dinosaurs from the Campanian and Maastrichtian ages of the Late Cretaceous in western North America. Ornithomimus was a swift, bipedal dinosaur which was covered in feathers and equipped with a small toothless beak that may indicate an omnivorous diet. It is usually classified into two species: the type species, Ornithomimus velox, and a referred species, Ornithomimus edmontonicus.

A picture published with the record for Ornithomimus.

Eduard Solà · 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
OrnithomimidaePBDB
Diet
herbivore, omnivorePBDB, for Ornithomimosauria
Life habit
ground dwelling, gregariousPBDB, for Ornithomimosauria
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Ornithomimosauria
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Ornithomimosauria
Length
4 mWikidata

Time the record covers

At most 18 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 83.6 Mya and 66 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Late Cretaceous — about 35 of 35 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 35 occurrences84–83 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences83–83 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences83–82 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences82–82 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences82–81 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences81–80 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences80–80 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences80–79 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences79–79 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences79–78 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences78–77 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences77–77 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences77–76 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences76–75 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences75–75 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences75–74 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences74–74 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences74–73 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences73–72 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences72–72 Mya — about 2 occurrences72–71 Mya — about 2 occurrences71–70 Mya — about 2 occurrences70–70 Mya — about 2 occurrences70–69 Mya — about 2 occurrences69–69 Mya — about 2 occurrences69–68 Mya — about 2 occurrences68–67 Mya — about 2 occurrences67–67 Mya — about 2 occurrences67–66 Mya — about 2 occurrences66–66 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences84.1 Mya65.5 Mya

35 occurrences of Ornithomimus 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

35 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

14 formations

Lance — 43.12°N, 104.64°WLance — 43.23°N, 104.53°WLance — 43.13°N, 104.07°WLance — 45.48°N, 104.19°WLance — 45.71°N, 102.05°WLance — 45.93°N, 103.92°WHorseshoe Canyon — 51.62°N, 112.87°WHorseshoe Canyon — 50.79°N, 111.59°WHorseshoe Canyon — 51.40°N, 112.59°WDenver — 39.68°N, 105.10°WDenver — 39.79°N, 105.02°WDenver — 39.93°N, 105.04°WDenver — 39.62°N, 104.04°WDinosaur Park — 50.81°N, 111.60°WDinosaur Park — 50.75°N, 111.52°WDinosaur Park — 50.78°N, 111.38°WTar Heel — 34.57°N, 78.50°WTar Heel — 34.61°N, 78.60°WHell Creek — 46.24°N, 107.38°WHell Creek — 45.00°N, 103.19°WFrenchman — 49.04°N, 106.60°WFruitland — 36.27°N, 108.24°WJudith River — 47.77°N, 108.95°WKaiparowits — 37.63°N, 111.86°WFerris — 41.94°N, 106.88°WTwo Medicine — 48.61°N, 109.68°WAguja — 29.32°N, 103.52°WScollard — 51.92°N, 112.93°W

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The named rock units Ornithomimus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Ornithomimus and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Ornithomimus and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

328 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 35 sites for Ornithomimus, 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

26 references

Each of the 35 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. 14 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 content2

Picture of Ornithomimus

Credit
Eduard Solà
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution-NonCommercial
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

This entry was cached before the site began recording what Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource did, so a search that failed cannot be told from one that found nothing.

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 itOrnithomimidae through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Marsh 1890