Continuoolithus
Continuoolithus is an oogenus of dinosaur egg found in the late Cretaceous of North America. It is most commonly known from the late Campanian of Alberta and Montana, but specimens have also been found dating to the older Santonian and the younger Maastrichtian. It was laid by an unknown type of theropod. These small eggs are similar to the eggs of oviraptorid dinosaurs, but have a distinctive type of ornamentation.
No picture of Continuoolithus was found. Wikipedia, Wikidata and iDigBio were searched and had none. Smithsonian Open Access did not answer, so this is what the others held rather than everything there is. GBIF was asked, and what came back is not recorded: nothing, or a picture this site could not tie to Continuoolithus, or no answer at all. This entry cannot say which.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- ElongatoolithidaePBDB
- 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 21 million years on record.
The record covers at least 93.9 Mya to 72.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 100.5 Mya to 66 Mya.
28 occurrences of Continuoolithus 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
8 formations
- Oldman Formation · Belly River Group6
- North Horn Formation6
- Dinosaur Park Formation · Belly River Group4
- Two Medicine Formation · Montana Group4
- Cedar Mountain Formation · Dakota Group3
- Aguja Formation2
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The named rock units Continuoolithus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Continuoolithus and its relatives
Late CretaceousWhere Continuoolithus and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.
Found in the same rock
160 taxa- Hadrosauridae8 sites
- Ankylosauria7 sites
- Mammalia7 sites
- Saurornitholestes langstoni7 sites
- Baenidae6 sites
- Lacertilia6 sites
- Lepisosteus6 sites
- Osteichthyes6 sites
- Theropoda6 sites
- Anura5 sites
- Aves5 sites
- Ceratopsidae5 sites
- Champsosaurus natator5 sites
- Chelydridae5 sites
- Coriops amnicolus5 sites
- Cyclurus5 sites
- Esocoidea5 sites
- Leidyosuchus canadensis5 sites
- Myledaphus bipartitus5 sites
- Opisthotriton kayi5 sites
- Paralbula casei5 sites
- Paronychodon5 sites
- Porituberoolithus warnerensis5 sites
- Richardoestesia5 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 28 sites for Continuoolithus, 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
10 references- Eggs and eggshell from the Upper Cretaceous North Horn Formation, central Utah6
- Eggshells5
- Parataxonomic classification of ornithoid eggshell fragments from the Oldman Formation (Judith River Group; Upper Cretaceous), southern Alberta5
- Fossil eggshell diversity of the Mussentuchit Member, Cedar Mountain Formation, Utah3
- Fossil eggs and eggshell from the lowermost Two Medicine Formation of western Montana, Sevenmile Hill locality3
- Eggshells assemblages and stable isotope composition in the Upper Cretaceous (Campanian) El Gallo Formation of Baja California, Mexico: Paleoenvironmental inferences2
- Paleoecology of the Gaddis Site in the Upper Cretaceous Aguja Formation, Terlingua, Texas1
- Paleoecological utility of insect trace fossils in dinosaur nesting sites of the Two Medicine Formation (Campanian), Choteau, Montana1
- Fossil eggshells from the Upper Cretaceous (Campanian) Fruitland Formation, New Mexico1
- Faunal composition and significance of high-diversity, mixed bonebeds containing Agujaceratops mariscalensis and other dinosaurs, Aguja Formation (Upper Cretaceous), Big Bend, Texas1
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 content0
No picture of Continuoolithus was found. Wikipedia, Wikidata and iDigBio were searched and had none.
Smithsonian Open Access did not answer, so this is what the others held rather than everything there is.
GBIF was asked, and what came back is not recorded: nothing, or a picture this site could not tie to Continuoolithus, or no answer at all. This entry cannot say which.
No 3D scan of Continuoolithus was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.
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 itElongatoolithidae through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Zelenitsky et al. 1996