Allosauridae

Allosauridae is an extinct family of medium to large bipedal, carnivorous allosauroid theropod dinosaurs from the Late Jurassic. Allosauridae is a fairly old taxonomic group, having been first named by the American paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh in 1878.

Allosauridae

WehaveaTrex · CC BY-SA 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
Also called
allosauridPBDB
Sits inside
AllosauriaPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Theropoda
Life habit
ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Theropoda

Time the record covers

At least 39 million years on record.

The record covers at least 165.3 Mya to 125.77 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 170.9 Mya to 121.4 Mya.

Middle Jurassic — about 2 of 14 occurrencesMiddle JurassicLate Jurassic — about 10 of 14 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 2 of 14 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous172–170 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences170–168 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences168–167 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences167–165 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences162–160 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences160–158 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences158–156 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences156–155 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences155–153 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences153–151 Mya — about 1 occurrence151–150 Mya — about 1 occurrence150–148 Mya — about 1 occurrence148–146 Mya — about 1 occurrence146–144 Mya — about 1 occurrence144–143 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences139–138 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences138–136 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences127–126 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences126–124 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences124–122 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences122–120 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences165.3 Mya125.77 Mya172 Mya120 Mya

14 occurrences of Allosauridae 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

14 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

7 formations

Morrison — 35.20°N, 107.13°WMorrison — 36.93°N, 102.98°WMorrison — 43.62°N, 108.18°WMorrison — 36.90°N, 102.83°WMorrison — 44.05°N, 107.46°WVillar del Arzobispo — 40.13°N, 1.13°WBückeberg — 52.44°N, 9.20°EVellerat — 47.42°N, 7.48°EEl Castellar — 40.62°N, 0.84°WUkureyskaya — 52.52°N, 116.72°EChacarilla — 20.83°S, 69.05°W

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The named rock units Allosauridae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Allosauridae and its relatives

Late Jurassic

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

Found in the same rock

73 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 13 sites for Allosauridae, 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

13 references

Each of the 14 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. 1 further reference is 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 Allosauridae

Credit
WehaveaTrex
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
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 itAllosauria through timeFormations of the Late JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Marsh 1878