Stegosaurus

Stegosaurus is a genus of extinct herbivorous four-legged armored dinosaurs from the Late Jurassic, characterized by the distinctive kite-shaped upright plates along their backs and spikes on their tails. Fossils of the genus have been found in the western United States and in Portugal, where they are found in Kimmeridgian- to Tithonian-aged strata, dating to between 155 and 145 million years ago. Of the species that have been classified in the upper Morrison Formation of the western US, only three are universally recognized: S. stenops, S. ungulatus and S. sulcatus. The remains of over 80 individual animals of this genus have been found. Stegosaurus would have lived alongside dinosaurs such as Apatosaurus, Diplodocus, Camarasaurus and Allosaurus, the latter of which may have preyed on it.

A picture published with the record for Stegosaurus.

Susannah Maidment et al. & Natural History Museum, London · 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
StegosaurinaePBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Ornithischia
Life habit
ground dwelling, gregariousPBDB, for Ornithischia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Ornithischia
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Ornithischia
Length
9 mWikidata
Mass
7 tonneWikidata

Time the record covers

At least 48 million years on record.

The record covers at least 149.2 Mya to 100.5 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 161.5 Mya to 93.9 Mya.

Middle Jurassic — about 0 of 86 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 84 of 86 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 1 of 86 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 1 of 86 occurrencesLate Cretaceous163–161 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences161–158 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences158–156 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences156–153 Mya — about 7 occurrences153–151 Mya — about 15 occurrences151–149 Mya — about 18 occurrences149–146 Mya — about 19 occurrences146–144 Mya — about 17 occurrences144–142 Mya — about 7 occurrences128–125 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences125–123 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences123–121 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences121–118 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences118–116 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences116–114 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences114–111 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences102–100 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences100–97 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences97–95 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences95–93 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences149.2 Mya100.5 Mya163 Mya93 Mya

86 occurrences of Stegosaurus on record, most of them in the Late 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

86 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

5 formations

Morrison — 42.04°N, 106.39°WMorrison — 42.02°N, 106.05°WMorrison — 43.63°N, 108.20°WMorrison — 40.42°N, 109.21°WMorrison — 40.44°N, 109.30°WMorrison — 39.68°N, 105.19°WMorrison — 41.91°N, 105.96°WMorrison — 38.54°N, 105.22°WMorrison — 41.88°N, 106.11°WMorrison — 38.58°N, 108.40°WMorrison — 36.90°N, 102.83°WMorrison — 36.93°N, 102.97°WMorrison — 41.97°N, 106.29°WMorrison — 39.01°N, 110.37°WMorrison — 39.17°N, 108.77°WMorrison — 41.92°N, 106.36°WMorrison — 39.32°N, 110.69°WMorrison — 42.16°N, 105.91°WMorrison — 39.20°N, 109.04°WMorrison — 39.08°N, 108.65°WMorrison — 44.54°N, 107.78°WMorrison — 42.15°N, 105.89°WMorrison — 40.50°N, 109.17°WMorrison — 44.09°N, 106.78°WMorrison — 40.46°N, 109.52°WMorrison — 38.71°N, 109.74°WMorrison — 44.63°N, 107.81°WMorrison — 45.22°N, 108.83°WMorrison — 39.15°N, 108.77°WMorrison — 38.25°N, 110.81°WMorrison — 38.45°N, 107.40°WMorrison — 38.85°N, 108.48°WMorrison — 44.09°N, 106.87°WMorrison — 40.46°N, 108.39°WMorrison — 34.99°N, 104.17°WMorrison — 39.01°N, 111.02°WMorrison — 35.10°N, 107.23°WMorrison — 44.66°N, 107.85°WMorrison — 41.91°N, 105.95°WMorrison — 40.30°N, 108.57°WMorrison — 39.14°N, 109.02°WAlcobaça — 39.66°N, 8.81°WCedar Mountain — 39.07°N, 110.99°WPraia da Amoreira-Porto Novo — 39.17°N, 9.20°WUpper — 35.79°N, 103.78°E

Loading coastlines…

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

Stegosaurus and its relatives

Late Jurassic

Where Stegosaurus and its relatives were recorded in the Late Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

205 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 76 sites for Stegosaurus, 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

44 references

Each of the 86 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. 32 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 content3

Picture of Stegosaurus

Credit
Susannah Maidment et al. & Natural History Museum, London
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D scan

Licence
CC0 — this site’s default, not the record’s
Commercial use
the licence allows it
Specimen
Stegosaurus stenops Marsh, 1887

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 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 itStegosaurinae through timeFormations of the Late JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Marsh 1877