Ceratosaurus

Ceratosaurus is a genus of carnivorous theropod dinosaur that lived during the Late Jurassic period in North America and Europe. The genus was first described in 1884 by American paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh based on a nearly complete skeleton discovered in Garden Park, Colorado, in rocks belonging to the Morrison Formation. The type species is Ceratosaurus nasicornis.

A picture published with the record for Ceratosaurus.

Jens Lallensack · 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
Sits inside
CeratosauriaPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Theropoda
Life habit
ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Theropoda
Length
6 mWikidata
Mass
600 kgWikidata

Time the record covers

At least 3 million years on record.

The record covers at least 152.21 Mya to 149.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 157.9 Mya to 143.1 Mya.

Late Jurassic — about 29 of 29 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 0 of 29 occurrences158–158 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences158–157 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences157–157 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences157–156 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences156–156 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences156–155 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences155–155 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences155–154 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences154–154 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences154–153 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences153–153 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences153–152 Mya — about 1 occurrence152–152 Mya — about 2 occurrences152–151 Mya — about 2 occurrences151–151 Mya — about 2 occurrences151–150 Mya — about 2 occurrences150–149 Mya — about 2 occurrences149–149 Mya — about 2 occurrences149–148 Mya — about 1 occurrence148–148 Mya — about 1 occurrence148–147 Mya — about 1 occurrence147–147 Mya — about 1 occurrence147–146 Mya — about 1 occurrence146–146 Mya — about 1 occurrence146–145 Mya — about 1 occurrence145–145 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences145–144 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences144–144 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences144–143 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences143–143 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences152.21 Mya149.2 Mya158.4 Mya142.6 Mya

29 occurrences of Ceratosaurus 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

29 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

6 formations

Morrison — 38.54°N, 105.22°WMorrison — 39.24°N, 109.00°WMorrison — 38.58°N, 108.40°WMorrison — 39.15°N, 108.77°WMorrison — 36.90°N, 102.83°WMorrison — 41.97°N, 106.29°WMorrison — 40.44°N, 109.30°WMorrison — 38.86°N, 110.90°WMorrison — 44.05°N, 107.46°WMorrison — 38.45°N, 107.40°WMorrison — 39.32°N, 110.69°WMorrison — 39.15°N, 108.77°WMorrison — 39.01°N, 111.02°WMorrison — 41.91°N, 105.97°WMorrison — 36.93°N, 102.97°WTendaguru — 9.68°S, 39.21°ETendaguru — 9.84°S, 39.39°ETendaguru — 10.11°S, 39.22°ELourinhã — 39.11°N, 9.21°WLourinhã — 39.22°N, 9.34°WTacuarembó — 31.70°S, 55.96°WTacuarembó — 31.87°S, 55.90°WAlcobaça — 39.70°N, 8.80°WPraia da Amoreira-Porto Novo — 39.20°N, 9.34°W

Loading coastlines…

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

Ceratosaurus and its relatives

Late Jurassic

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

Found in the same rock

260 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 29 sites for Ceratosaurus, 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

22 references

Each of the 29 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. 10 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 content3

Picture of Ceratosaurus

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

CT scan

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Ceratosaurus sp. · umnh:vp:5278

3D model

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

This entry was cached before the site began recording what Smithsonian Open Access did, so a search that failed cannot be told from one that found nothing.

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 itCeratosauria through timeFormations of the Late JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Marsh 1884