Thescelosaurus neglectus
Thescelosaurus is a genus of ornithischian dinosaur that lived during the Late Cretaceous period in western North America. It was named and described in 1913 by the paleontologist Charles W. Gilmore; the type species is T. neglectus. Two other species, T. garbanii and T. assiniboiensis, were named in 1976 and 2011, respectively. Additional species have been suggested but are currently not accepted. Thescelosaurus is the eponymous member of its family, the Thescelosauridae. Thescelosaurids are either considered to be basal ("primitive") ornithopods, or are placed outside of this group within the broader group Neornithischia.

Nobu Tamura ( http://spinops.blogspot.com ) · CC BY 2.5 · 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
- ThescelosaurusPBDB
- 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 18 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 83.6 Mya and 66 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
28 occurrences of Thescelosaurus neglectus 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
28 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
5 formations
- Hell Creek Formation · Montana Group15
- Oldman Formation · Belly River Group4
- Dinosaur Park Formation · Belly River Group4
- Lance Formation4
- Frenchman Formation1
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The named rock units Thescelosaurus neglectus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Thescelosaurus neglectus and its relatives
Late CretaceousWhere Thescelosaurus neglectus and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.
Found in the same rock
184 taxa- Myledaphus bipartitus20 sites
- Paronychodon16 sites
- Scapherpeton tectum16 sites
- Baenidae14 sites
- Opisthotriton kayi14 sites
- Ceratopsidae13 sites
- Teleostei13 sites
- Chelydridae12 sites
- Mammalia12 sites
- Anura11 sites
- Aves11 sites
- Belonostomus longirostris11 sites
- Borealosuchus sternbergii11 sites
- Champsosaurus11 sites
- Lepisosteus occidentalis11 sites
- Multituberculata11 sites
- Brachychampsa montana10 sites
- Coriops amnicolus10 sites
- Lepisosteus10 sites
- Pachycephalosauridae10 sites
- Theropoda10 sites
- Tyrannosaurus rex10 sites
- Ankylosauria9 sites
- Cyclurus fragosus9 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 28 sites for Thescelosaurus neglectus, 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
11 references- Vertebrate biostratigraphy of the Hell Creek Formation in southwestern North Dakota and northwestern South Dakota8
- Paleontology of the Judith River Formation (Campanian) of Dinosaur National Park, Alberta, Canada: evidence from vertebrate microfossil locality7
- Notes on Thescelosaurus, a conservative ornithopod dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous of North America, with comments on ornithopod classification3
- The Lower Vertebrates of the Hell Creek Formation, Harding County, South Dakota2
- A new dinosaur from the Lance Formation of Wyoming2
- The paleontology, geology and taphonomy of the Tooth Draw Deposit; Hell Creek Formation (Maastrictian), Butte County, South Dakota1
- Bonebed 311
- Annotated catalogue of the dinosaurs (Reptilia, Archosauria) in the collections of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History1
- Paleobiology and depositional setting of a Late Cretaceous vertebrate locality, Hell Creek Formation, McCone County, Montana1
- Report on a collection of vertebrates from Wood Mountain, southern Saskatchewan, collected by C. M. Sternberg, 19211
- Osteology of Thescelosaurus, an orthopodous dinosaur from the Lance Formation of Wyoming1
Each of the 28 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 content3

Picture of Thescelosaurus neglectus
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- Nobu Tamura ( http://spinops.blogspot.com )
- Licence
- CC BY 2.5
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Thescelosaurus neglectus · ncsm:ncsm-vertpaleo:15728
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
- 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 itThescelosaurus through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gilmore 1913