Tetrapodosaurus

Tetrapodosaurus is an ichnogenus of dinosaur footprint found in Canada and the United States, likely representing the tracks of a non-ankylosaurid ankylosaur.

Tetrapodosaurus

Arbour, Victoria M.; Larson, Derek; Vavrek, Matthew; Buckley, Lisa; Evans, David · 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
TetrapodosauridaePBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Ornithopoda
Life habit
ground dwelling, gregariousPBDB, for Ornithischia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Ornithischia
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Ornithischia

Time the record covers

At least 84 million years on record.

The record covers at least 168.2 Mya to 83.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 170.9 Mya to 66 Mya.

Middle Jurassic — about 1 of 52 occurrencesMiddle JurassicLate Jurassic — about 0 of 52 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 35 of 52 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 16 of 52 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 52 occurrences173–169 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences169–166 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences140–137 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences137–133 Mya — about 2 occurrences133–129 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences122–118 Mya — about 2 occurrences118–115 Mya — about 2 occurrences115–111 Mya — about 4 occurrences111–108 Mya — about 9 occurrences108–104 Mya — about 9 occurrences104–100 Mya — about 8 occurrences100–97 Mya — about 8 occurrences97–93 Mya — about 6 occurrences93–89 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences86–82 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences82–78 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences78–75 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences75–71 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences71–68 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences68–64 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences168.2 Mya83.6 Mya173 Mya64 Mya

52 occurrences of Tetrapodosaurus on record, most of them in the Early 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

52 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

13 formations

Gates — 54.05°N, 119.17°WGates — 54.03°N, 119.25°WGates — 54.42°N, 119.29°WGates — 54.25°N, 119.27°WGates — 54.11°N, 119.90°WGates — 52.00°N, 115.98°WGates — 54.90°N, 120.96°WGates — 55.63°N, 121.83°WDunvegan — 55.73°N, 121.20°WDunvegan — 55.62°N, 120.48°WDunvegan — 55.06°N, 120.91°WDunvegan — 55.14°N, 121.24°WNaturita — 38.65°N, 108.12°WNaturita — 38.48°N, 108.41°WNaturita — 38.72°N, 108.17°WNaturita — 38.54°N, 108.19°WNaturita — 37.12°N, 111.89°WGething — 56.03°N, 122.20°WGething — 55.91°N, 122.66°WGething — 56.03°N, 121.92°WPatuxent — 38.26°N, 77.42°WKaskapau — 55.06°N, 120.91°WGorman Creek — 54.07°N, 120.29°WGorman Creek — 54.21°N, 119.96°W?Dunvegan — 55.00°N, 121.25°WNanushuk — 69.01°N, 153.91°WChignik — 56.81°N, 157.84°WWapiti — 55.06°N, 119.11°WZorrillo-Taberna Indiferenciadas — 17.32°N, 97.72°WCedar Mountain — 38.72°N, 109.73°W

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The named rock units Tetrapodosaurus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 3 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Tetrapodosaurus and its relatives

Early Cretaceous

Where Tetrapodosaurus and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

47 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 51 sites for Tetrapodosaurus, 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

21 references

Each of the 52 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. 9 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 content1

Picture of Tetrapodosaurus

Credit
Arbour, Victoria M.; Larson, Derek; Vavrek, Matthew; Buckley, Lisa; Evans, David
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 itTetrapodosauridae through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Sternberg 1932