Anzu

Anzu is a genus of caenagnathid dinosaur from North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana that lived during the Late Cretaceous in what is now the Hell Creek Formation. The type species, Anzu wyliei, known from numerous skeletons that preserve cranial and postcranial elements. It was named in 2014 by Matthew C. Lamanna, Hans-Dieter Sues, Emma R. Schachner, and Tyler R. Lyson.

Anzu

LittleLazyLass · 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
Also called
chicken from hellPBDB
Sits inside
CaenagnathinaePBDB
Diet
omnivorePBDB, for Oviraptorosauria
Life habit
ground dwelling, depth=surfacePBDB, for Oviraptorosauria
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Oviraptorosauria
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Oviraptorosauria

Time the record covers

At most 6.2 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 72.2 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 6 of 6 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 6 occurrences72–72 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences72–72 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences72–72 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences72–71 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences71–71 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences71–71 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences71–71 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences71–70 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences70–70 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences70–70 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences70–70 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences70–69 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences69–69 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences69–69 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences69–69 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences69–68 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences68–68 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences68–68 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences68–68 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences68–67 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences67–67 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences67–67 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences67–67 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences67–66 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences66–66 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences66–66 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences72.7 Mya65.5 Mya

6 occurrences of Anzu 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

6 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

1 formation

Hell Creek — 45.87°N, 103.79°WHell Creek — 46.33°N, 103.98°WHell Creek — 45.89°N, 104.55°WHell Creek — 47.05°N, 107.35°WHell Creek — 45.00°N, 103.19°W

Loading coastlines…

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

Anzu and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

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

Found in the same rock

83 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Anzu, 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

5 references

Each of the 6 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 content1

Picture of Anzu

Credit
LittleLazyLass
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Anzu was found in Sketchfab.

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 itCaenagnathinae through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Lamanna et al. 2014