Ornithopoda
Ornithopoda is a clade of ornithischian dinosaurs, called ornithopods. They represent one of the most successful groups of herbivorous dinosaurs during the Cretaceous. The most primitive members of the group were bipedal and relatively small-sized, while advanced members of the subgroup Iguanodontia became quadrupedal and developed large body size. Their major evolutionary advantage was the progressive development of a chewing apparatus that became the most sophisticated ever developed by a non-avian dinosaur, rivaling that of modern mammals such as the domestic cow. They reached their apex of diversity and ecological dominance in the hadrosaurids, before they were wiped out by the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event along with all other non-avian dinosaurs. Members are known worldwide.

User:Ricardalovesmonuments Rodney SandwichCafe User:FunkMonk ★Kumiko★ Jim, the Photographer · 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- Also called
- ornithopodPBDB
- Sits inside
- CerapodaPBDB
- Diet
- herbivorePBDB
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, gregariousPBDB, for Ornithischia
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Ornithischia
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Ornithischia
Time the record covers
At least 155 million years on record.
The record covers at least 227.3 Mya to 72.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 237 Mya to 61.66 Mya.
3,906 occurrences of Ornithopoda 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
3,906 occurrences- Late Triassicunder 1%
- Early Jurassic4%
- Middle Jurassicunder 1%
- Late Jurassic6%
- Early Cretaceous29%
- Late Cretaceous60%
- Paleoceneunder 1%
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
552 formations
- Dinosaur Park Formation · Belly River Group160
- Morrison Formation111
- Hell Creek Formation · Montana Group106
- Kirtland Formation100
- Fruitland/Kirtland Formation97
- Conques Formation · Tremp Group93
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Ornithopoda has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 528 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 348 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Ornithopoda and its relatives
Late CretaceousWhere Ornithopoda and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.
Found in the same rock
1,433 taxa- Hadrosauridae70 sites
- Theropoda67 sites
- Trionychidae56 sites
- Ceratopsidae49 sites
- Myledaphus bipartitus48 sites
- Baenidae45 sites
- Lepisosteus occidentalis45 sites
- Teleostei43 sites
- Crocodylia42 sites
- Scapherpeton tectum42 sites
- Anura41 sites
- Hadrosaurinae40 sites
- Chelydridae39 sites
- Champsosaurus36 sites
- Opisthotriton kayi36 sites
- Adocus35 sites
- Paronychodon35 sites
- Multituberculata34 sites
- Tyrannosauridae31 sites
- Aves25 sites
- Dromaeosauridae25 sites
- Mammalia25 sites
- Paralbula casei25 sites
- Testudines25 sites
The Paleobiology Database records at least 1,720 sites for Ornithopoda, and this reads 240 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
1,534 references- Paleontological survey, resource assessment, and mitigation plan for the Bisti-Star Lake Area, northwestern New Mexico116
- Hadrosaurian dinosaurs of North America108
- Dinozavri severnoi Yevrazii: Novye dannye o sostave kompleksov, ekologii i paleobiogeografii [Dinosaurs of northern Eurasia: new data about assemblages, ecology, and paleobiogeography]98
- Stratigraphic distribution of hadrosaurids in the Upper Cretaceous Fruitland, Kirtland, and Ojo Alamo formations, San Juan Basin, New Mexico61
- Stratigraphy and paleontology of the Cloverly Formation (Lower Cretaceous) of the Bighorn Basin area, Wyoming and Montana57
- The hadrosaurian record from Mexico50
- Diversity of Late Cretaceous dinosaurs from Mexico44
- Notes on Neocomian (Lower Cretaceous) ornithopod dinosaurs from England - Hypsilophodon, Valdosaurus, "Camptosaurus", "Iguanodon" - and referred specimens from Romania and elsewhere34
- Vertebrate biostratigraphy of the Hell Creek Formation in southwestern North Dakota and northwestern South Dakota32
- The hadrosaurid record in the Maastrichtian of the eastern Tremp Syncline (Northern Spain)30
- Quarries of Dinosaur Provincial Park30
- Hadrosaurian Dinosaurs of Big Bend National Park, Brewster County, Texas30
Each of the 3,906 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. 1,522 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 Ornithopoda
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- User:Ricardalovesmonuments Rodney SandwichCafe User:FunkMonk ★Kumiko★ Jim, the Photographer
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
Photography scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Ornithopoda indet. · mcnuz:mpz:MPZ 2025/513
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Ornithopoda”
- 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 itCerapoda through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Marsh 1881)