Alamosaurus

Alamosaurus is a genus of titanosaurian sauropod dinosaurs containing a single known species, Alamosaurus sanjuanensis, from the Maastrichtian age of the Late Cretaceous period in what is now southwestern North America. It is one of the only known sauropods to have inhabited North America after the nearly 30-million-year absence of sauropods from the continent's fossil record and probably represents an immigrant from South America or Asia.

Alamosaurus

Charles W. Gilmore · Public Domain · 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
SaltasaurinaePBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Sauropoda
Life habit
ground dwelling, gregariousPBDB, for Sauropoda
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Sauropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Sauropoda
Length
21 mWikidata

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.

Late Cretaceous — about 38 of 38 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 38 occurrences84–83 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences83–83 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences83–82 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences82–82 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences82–81 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences81–80 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences80–80 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences80–79 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences79–79 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences79–78 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences78–77 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences77–77 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences77–76 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences76–75 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences75–75 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences75–74 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences74–74 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences74–73 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences73–72 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences72–72 Mya — about 3 occurrences72–71 Mya — about 3 occurrences71–70 Mya — about 3 occurrences70–70 Mya — about 3 occurrences70–69 Mya — about 3 occurrences69–69 Mya — about 3 occurrences69–68 Mya — about 3 occurrences68–67 Mya — about 3 occurrences67–67 Mya — about 3 occurrences67–66 Mya — about 3 occurrences66–66 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences84.1 Mya65.5 Mya

38 occurrences of Alamosaurus 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

38 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

8 formations

Ojo Alamo — 36.31°N, 108.03°WOjo Alamo — 36.34°N, 108.10°WOjo Alamo — 36.17°N, 107.80°WOjo Alamo — 36.27°N, 108.17°WJavelina — 29.40°N, 103.20°WJavelina — 29.46°N, 103.14°WJavelina — 29.41°N, 103.30°WJavelina — 29.58°N, 103.08°WJavelina — 29.46°N, 103.16°WNorth Horn — 39.20°N, 111.24°WNorth Horn — 39.17°N, 111.27°WNorth Horn — 39.05°N, 111.27°WKirtland — 36.31°N, 108.05°WKirtland — 36.34°N, 108.08°WKirtland — 35.69°N, 106.87°WKirtland — 36.51°N, 108.32°WBlack Peaks — 29.40°N, 103.20°WMcRae — 33.15°N, 107.19°WJavelina — 29.00°N, 103.82°WHall Lake — 33.13°N, 107.19°W

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The named rock units Alamosaurus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Alamosaurus and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Alamosaurus and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

51 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 38 sites for Alamosaurus, 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

19 references

Each of the 38 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. 7 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 content2

Picture of Alamosaurus

Credit
Charles W. Gilmore
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Credit
Gravinuke
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were 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 itSaltasaurinae through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gilmore 1922