Nanosaurus

Nanosaurus is an extinct genus of neornithischian dinosaur that lived about 155 to 148 million years ago, during the Late Jurassic in North America. Its fossils are known from the Morrison Formation of the south-western United States. The type and only species, Nanosaurus agilis, was described and named by Othniel Charles Marsh in 1877. The taxon has a complicated taxonomic history, largely the work of Marsh and Peter M. Galton, involving the genera Laosaurus, Hallopus, Drinker, Othnielia, and Othnielosaurus, the latter three now being considered to be synonyms of Nanosaurus. It had historically been classified as a hypsilophodont or fabrosaur, types of generalized small bipedal herbivore, but more recent research has abandoned these groupings as paraphyletic and Nanosaurus is today considered a basal member of Neornithischia.

Nanosaurus

FunkMonk · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
NeornithischiaPBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Ornithischia
Life habit
ground dwelling, gregariousPBDB, for Ornithischia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Ornithischia
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Ornithischia

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 32 of 32 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 0 of 32 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 0.3 occurrences155–154 Mya — about 1 occurrence154–154 Mya — about 1 occurrence154–153 Mya — about 1 occurrence153–153 Mya — about 1 occurrence153–152 Mya — about 1 occurrence152–152 Mya — about 1 occurrence152–151 Mya — about 1 occurrence151–151 Mya — about 1 occurrence151–150 Mya — about 1 occurrence150–149 Mya — about 1 occurrence149–149 Mya — about 1 occurrence149–148 Mya — about 2 occurrences148–148 Mya — about 2 occurrences148–147 Mya — about 2 occurrences147–147 Mya — about 2 occurrences147–146 Mya — about 2 occurrences146–146 Mya — about 2 occurrences146–145 Mya — about 2 occurrences145–145 Mya — about 1 occurrence145–144 Mya — about 1 occurrence144–144 Mya — about 1 occurrence144–143 Mya — about 1 occurrence143–143 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences152.21 Mya149.2 Mya158.4 Mya142.6 Mya

32 occurrences of Nanosaurus 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

32 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

Morrison — 38.54°N, 105.22°WMorrison — 41.88°N, 106.10°WMorrison — 41.89°N, 106.00°WMorrison — 44.65°N, 107.82°WMorrison — 38.73°N, 111.27°WMorrison — 44.46°N, 104.73°WMorrison — 41.98°N, 106.15°WMorrison — 42.52°N, 106.74°WMorrison — 44.05°N, 107.46°WMorrison — 41.88°N, 105.89°WMorrison — 39.24°N, 109.00°W

Loading coastlines…

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

Nanosaurus and its relatives

Late Jurassic

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

Found in the same rock

202 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 23 sites for Nanosaurus, 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

23 references

Each of the 32 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. 11 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 content2

Picture of Nanosaurus

Credit
FunkMonk
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Nanosaurus sp. · mwc:5822

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 itNeornithischia through timeFormations of the Late JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Marsh 1877