Rhabdodontidae

Rhabdodontidae is a family of herbivorous iguanodontian ornithopod dinosaurs whose earliest stem members appeared in the middle of the Lower Cretaceous. The oldest dated fossils of these stem members were found in the Barremian Castrillo de la Reina Formation of Spain, dating to approximately 129.4 to 125.0 million years ago. With their deep skulls and jaws, Rhabdodontids were similar to large, robust iguanodonts. The family was first proposed by David B. Weishampel and colleagues in 2003. Rhabdodontid fossils have been mainly found in Europe in formations dating to the Late Cretaceous.

Rhabdodontidae

Tomopteryx · 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
Also called
rhabdodontidPBDB
Sits inside
RhabdodontoideaPBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Ornithopoda
Life habit
ground dwelling, gregariousPBDB, for Ornithischia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Ornithischia
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Ornithischia

Time the record covers

At least 49 million years on record.

The record covers at least 121.4 Mya to 72.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 125.77 Mya to 66 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 2 of 46 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 44 of 46 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 46 occurrences127–125 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences125–123 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences123–121 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences121–119 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences119–117 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences117–115 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences115–112 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences112–110 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences110–108 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences108–106 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences106–104 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences104–102 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences102–100 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences88–86 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences86–83 Mya — about 1 occurrence83–81 Mya — about 4 occurrences81–79 Mya — about 4 occurrences79–77 Mya — about 4 occurrences77–75 Mya — about 4 occurrences75–73 Mya — about 4 occurrences73–71 Mya — about 6 occurrences71–69 Mya — about 7 occurrences69–67 Mya — about 7 occurrences67–65 Mya — about 3 occurrences121.4 Mya72.2 Mya127 Mya65 Mya

46 occurrences of Rhabdodontidae 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

46 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

20 formations

Marnes Rouges Inférieures — 42.91°N, 2.20°EMarnes Rouges Inférieures — 42.93°N, 2.26°EGrès à Reptiles — 43.35°N, 2.95°EGrès à Reptiles — 43.38°N, 2.92°EGrès à Reptiles — 43.61°N, 6.08°EVitoria — 42.66°N, 2.63°WGrünbach — 47.82°N, 16.24°EGrès de Labarre — 42.94°N, 1.86°EGrès de Labarre — 43.03°N, 1.36°EFiguerola — 42.00°N, 0.93°EDensuș-Ciula — 45.62°N, 22.78°ESedano — 42.66°N, 2.63°WCsehbánya — 47.22°N, 17.60°EVegas de Matute — 41.08°N, 4.32°WSierra Perenchiza — 39.60°N, 0.97°WSantibañez del Val — 41.76°N, 2.98°WSebeş — 46.00°N, 23.56°EVillalba de la Sierra — 39.95°N, 2.02°WSînpetru — 45.55°N, 22.92°EBlesa — 40.95°N, 0.77°WArgiles rutilantes — 43.50°N, 5.73°EArgiles et Grès à Reptiles — 43.49°N, 5.61°ESaint-Chinian — 43.37°N, 2.87°ERâul Mare — 45.58°N, 22.93°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Rhabdodontidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 15 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Rhabdodontidae and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Rhabdodontidae and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

305 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 44 sites for Rhabdodontidae, 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

38 references

Each of the 46 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. 26 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 content1

Picture of Rhabdodontidae

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

No 3D scan of Rhabdodontidae 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.

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 itRhabdodontoidea through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Weishampel et al. 2003