Massospondylus carinatus

CaptMondo · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikidata/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
- MassospondylusPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Diapsida
Time the record covers
At most 27 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 201.4 Mya and 174.7 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
11 occurrences of Massospondylus carinatus on record, most of them in the Early 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
11 occurrences- Early Jurassic100%
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
4 formations
- Elliot Formation · Stormberg Group6
- Clarens Formation · Stormberg Group3
- Upper Karroo Sandstone Formation · Karoo Group1
- Forest Sandstone Formation · Karoo Group1
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The named rock units Massospondylus carinatus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Massospondylus carinatus and its relatives
Early JurassicWhere Massospondylus carinatus and its relatives were recorded in the Early Jurassic.
Found in the same rock
5 taxa- Prosauropoda2 sites
- Heterodontosaurus tucki1 site
- Lesothosaurus diagnosticus1 site
- Neotheropoda1 site
- Pachygenelus1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 11 sites for Massospondylus carinatus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.
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
7 references- On the skull of Massospondylus carinatus Owen, 1854 (Dinosauria: Sauropodomorpha) from the Elliot and Clarens Formations (Lower Jurassic) of South Africa3
- The prosauropod dinosaur Massospondylus carinatus Owen from Zimbabwe: its biology, mode of life and phylogenetic significance3
- Limb bone histology of theropod dinosaurs from the Early Jurassic of South Africa1
- Embryonic skeletal anatomy of the sauropodomorph dinosaur Massospondylus from the Lower Jurassic of South Africa1
- New information on the palate and lower jaw of Massospondylus (Dinosauria: Sauropodomorpha)1
- The Karoo rocks in the Mazinga area, Beitbridge District1
- Descriptive catalogue of the Fossil organic remains of Reptilia and Pisces contained in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England1
Each of the 11 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 Massospondylus carinatus
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- CaptMondo
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Massospondylus carinatus 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.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itMassospondylus through timeFormations of the Early JurassicThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Owen 1854