Protohadros
Protohadros is a genus of basal hadrosauroid dinosaur from the early Late Cretaceous of what is now Texas, United States. It is represented by the species Protohadros byrdi, known from a partially complete skull and associated postcranial remains recovered from the Woodbine Formation. Protohadros was one of the earliest derived hadrosaurs in North America.

Bubblesorg · CC BY 4.0 · 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
- HadrosauroideaPBDB
- Diet
- herbivorePBDB, for Ornithopoda
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, gregariousPBDB, for Ornithischia
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Ornithischia
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Ornithischia
- Length
- 6 mWikidata
Time the record covers
At most 6.6 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 100.5 Mya and 93.9 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
4 occurrences of Protohadros 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
1 formation
- Lewisville Formation · Woodbine Group4
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The named rock units Protohadros has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Protohadros and its relatives
Late CretaceousWhere Protohadros and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.
Found in the same rock
14 taxa- Bivalvia2 sites
- Osteichthyes2 sites
- Theropoda2 sites
- Ampelognathus coheni1 site
- Archosauria1 site
- Crocodylia1 site
- Crocodyliformes1 site
- Flexomornis howei1 site
- Gastropoda1 site
- Maniraptora1 site
- Selachii1 site
- Testudinata1 site
- Testudines1 site
- Tracheophyta1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Protohadros, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.
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- Archosaur fossil localities in the Woodbine Formation (Cenomanian) of north central Texas3
- A new species of basal hadrosaurid (Dinosauria, Ornithischia) from the Cenomanian of Texas1
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 content1

Picture of Protohadros
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- Bubblesorg
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Protohadros was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.
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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Protohadros”
- 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 itHadrosauroidea through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Head 1998