Ruopodosaurus clava

Ruopodosaurus is an ichnogenus of ankylosaurian dinosaur footprint. The ichnogenus contains a single ichnospecies, Ruopodosaurus clava, described in 2025 from prints found in the Late Cretaceous Dunvegan and Kaskapau formations of Canada. Additional prints from the similarly aged Jindong Formation of South Korea were later tentatively referred to this ichnogenus. Ruopodosaurus represents the first recognized ankylosaurid tracks in the trace fossil record.

No picture of Ruopodosaurus clava was found. Wikipedia, Wikidata, iDigBio and Smithsonian Open Access were searched and had none. GBIF was asked, and what came back is not recorded: nothing, or a picture this site could not tie to Ruopodosaurus clava, or no answer at all. This entry cannot say which.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
RuopodosaurusPBDB
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 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.

Early Cretaceous — about 0 of 4 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 4 of 4 occurrencesLate Cretaceous101–100 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences100–100 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences100–100 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences100–100 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences100–99 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences99–99 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences99–99 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences99–99 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences99–98 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences98–98 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences98–98 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences98–98 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences98–97 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences97–97 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences97–97 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences97–97 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences97–96 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences96–96 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences96–96 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences96–96 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences96–95 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences95–95 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences95–95 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences95–95 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences95–94 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences94–94 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences94–94 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences94–94 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences101 Mya93.4 Mya

4 occurrences of Ruopodosaurus clava 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

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

Dunvegan — 55.06°N, 120.91°WDunvegan — 55.14°N, 121.24°WKaskapau — 55.17°N, 121.09°W

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The named rock units Ruopodosaurus clava has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Ruopodosaurus clava and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Ruopodosaurus clava and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

3 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Ruopodosaurus clava, 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

1 reference

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 content1

Photogrammetry

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Ruopodosaurus clava · TRMF:2023.09.002

No picture of Ruopodosaurus clava was found. Wikipedia, Wikidata, iDigBio and Smithsonian Open Access were searched and had none.

GBIF was asked, and what came back is not recorded: nothing, or a picture this site could not tie to Ruopodosaurus clava, or no answer at all. This entry cannot say which.

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 itRuopodosaurus through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Arbour et al. 2024