Scutellosaurus

Scutellosaurus is a genus of basal thyreophoran dinosaur that lived approximately 196 million years ago during the early part of the Jurassic Period in what is now Arizona, USA. It is classified in Thyreophora, the armoured dinosaurs; its closest relatives may have been Emausaurus and Scelidosaurus, another armored dinosaur which was mainly a quadrupedal dinosaur, unlike bipedal Scutellosaurus. It is one of the earliest representatives of the armored dinosaurs and the basalmost form discovered to date. Scutellosaurus was a small, lightly-built, ground-dwelling herbivore, that could grow up to an estimated 1.3 metres (4.3 ft) long.

Scutellosaurus

A Cynical Idealist · CC BY 4.0 · 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
ThyreophoraPBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Ornithischia
Life habit
ground dwelling, gregariousPBDB, for Ornithischia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Ornithischia
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Ornithischia
Length
1.2 mWikidata

Time the record covers

At most 18 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 201.4 Mya and 184.2 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Late Triassic — about 0 of 23 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 23 of 23 occurrencesEarly Jurassic202–201 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences201–201 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences201–200 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences200–199 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences199–199 Mya — about 1 occurrence199–198 Mya — about 1 occurrence198–198 Mya — about 1 occurrence198–197 Mya — about 1 occurrence197–196 Mya — about 1 occurrence196–196 Mya — about 1 occurrence196–195 Mya — about 1 occurrence195–195 Mya — about 1 occurrence195–194 Mya — about 1 occurrence194–193 Mya — about 1 occurrence193–193 Mya — about 1 occurrence193–192 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences192–192 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences192–191 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences191–190 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences190–190 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences190–189 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences189–189 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences189–188 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences188–187 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences187–187 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences187–186 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences186–186 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences186–185 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences185–184 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences184–184 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences201.9 Mya183.7 Mya

23 occurrences of Scutellosaurus on record, most of them in the Early Jurassic. 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

23 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

1 formation

Kayenta — 35.68°N, 111.03°WKayenta — 35.74°N, 111.07°WKayenta — 35.75°N, 111.08°WKayenta — 37.00°N, 110.70°W

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

Scutellosaurus and its relatives

Early Jurassic

Where Scutellosaurus and its relatives were recorded in the Early Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

33 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 18 sites for Scutellosaurus, 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

6 references

Each of the 23 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 Scutellosaurus

Credit
A Cynical Idealist
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

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 itThyreophora through timeFormations of the Early JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Colbert 1981