Troodontidae

Troodontidae is a clade of bird-like theropod dinosaurs from the Late Jurassic to Late Cretaceous. During most of the 20th century, troodontid fossils were few and incomplete and they have therefore been allied, at various times, with many dinosaurian lineages. More recent fossil discoveries of complete and articulated specimens, have helped to increase understanding about this group. Anatomical studies, particularly studies of the most primitive troodontids, like Sinovenator, demonstrate striking anatomical similarities with Archaeopteryx and primitive dromaeosaurids, and demonstrate that they are relatives comprising a clade called Paraves.

Troodontidae

File:Mei Long.jpg ( Bruce McAdam ) File:Alaskan_troodont.jpg ( bryan... from Taipei, Taiwan) File:Sinovenator-Tianjin… · CC BY 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
Sits inside
DeinonychosauriaPBDB
Diet
carnivore, omnivorePBDB
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB

Time the record covers

At least 82 million years on record.

The record covers at least 154.8 Mya to 72.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 168.2 Mya to 61.66 Mya.

Middle Jurassic — about 1 of 250 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 7 of 250 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 24 of 250 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 218 of 250 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 250 occurrences170–167 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences167–163 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences163–159 Mya — about 1 occurrence159–156 Mya — about 1 occurrence156–152 Mya — about 2 occurrences152–148 Mya — about 1 occurrence148–144 Mya — about 2 occurrences144–141 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences137–133 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences133–130 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences130–126 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences126–122 Mya — about 8 occurrences122–119 Mya — about 7 occurrences119–115 Mya — about 3 occurrences115–111 Mya — about 2 occurrences111–108 Mya — about 1 occurrence108–104 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences104–100 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences100–96 Mya — about 3 occurrences96–93 Mya — about 2 occurrences93–89 Mya — about 1 occurrence89–85 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences85–82 Mya — about 23 occurrences82–78 Mya — about 41 occurrences78–74 Mya — about 41 occurrences74–71 Mya — about 44 occurrences71–67 Mya — about 48 occurrences67–63 Mya — about 12 occurrences63–60 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences154.8 Mya72.2 Mya170 Mya60 Mya

250 occurrences of Troodontidae 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

250 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

58 formations

Dinosaur Park — 49.12°N, 110.47°WDinosaur Park — 50.81°N, 111.33°WDinosaur Park — 50.75°N, 111.48°WDinosaur Park — 50.75°N, 111.50°WDinosaur Park — 50.80°N, 111.60°WDinosaur Park — 50.75°N, 111.40°WDinosaur Park — 49.99°N, 111.42°WDinosaur Park — 51.44°N, 110.39°WDinosaur Park — 50.73°N, 111.30°WDinosaur Park — 50.72°N, 111.56°WDinosaur Park — 50.68°N, 108.09°WDinosaur Park — 50.51°N, 110.39°WOldman — 50.75°N, 111.51°WOldman — 49.08°N, 110.68°WOldman — 49.16°N, 110.72°WOldman — 50.83°N, 111.32°WOldman — 49.28°N, 112.58°WOldman — 50.72°N, 111.40°WOldman — 50.79°N, 111.62°WOldman — 50.73°N, 110.08°WOldman — 50.75°N, 111.41°WOldman — 49.28°N, 112.20°WOldman — 50.73°N, 111.50°WOldman — 49.36°N, 112.50°WHell Creek — 45.95°N, 103.96°WHell Creek — 46.10°N, 103.30°WHell Creek — 47.52°N, 106.40°WHell Creek — 47.65°N, 106.65°WHell Creek — 47.52°N, 107.18°WHell Creek — 47.07°N, 106.92°WHell Creek — 47.80°N, 106.10°WHell Creek — 47.63°N, 106.20°WHell Creek — 47.55°N, 107.13°WHell Creek — 45.66°N, 105.08°WHell Creek — 45.50°N, 103.10°WHell Creek — 45.64°N, 103.49°WHell Creek — 45.53°N, 101.63°WHell Creek — 45.00°N, 103.19°WHorseshoe Canyon — 51.54°N, 112.88°WHorseshoe Canyon — 51.48°N, 112.77°WHorseshoe Canyon — 52.00°N, 112.88°WHorseshoe Canyon — 51.65°N, 112.90°WHorseshoe Canyon — 51.41°N, 112.63°WHorseshoe Canyon — 55.46°N, 117.42°WHorseshoe Canyon — 53.26°N, 113.81°WHorseshoe Canyon — 51.49°N, 113.15°WHorseshoe Canyon — 53.45°N, 113.55°WHorseshoe Canyon — 51.46°N, 112.73°WHorseshoe Canyon — 51.55°N, 112.88°WJudith River — 46.47°N, 109.30°WJudith River — 46.46°N, 109.41°WJudith River — 47.81°N, 109.59°WJudith River — 46.10°N, 109.10°WJudith River — 46.40°N, 109.66°WJudith River — 47.77°N, 108.95°WJudith River — 47.72°N, 109.64°WJudith River — 48.54°N, 109.81°WJudith River — 46.76°N, 108.00°WJudith River — 43.64°N, 109.35°WJudith River — 46.42°N, 109.27°WLance — 43.49°N, 104.46°WLance — 43.13°N, 104.49°WLance — 43.12°N, 104.64°WLance — 43.18°N, 104.53°WLance — 43.15°N, 104.57°WLance — 45.48°N, 104.19°WYixian — 41.60°N, 120.91°EYixian — 41.37°N, 124.68°EYixian — 41.58°N, 120.95°EYixian — 41.13°N, 121.14°EYixian — 41.78°N, 120.76°EYixian — 41.41°N, 119.12°ETwo Medicine — 48.63°N, 113.75°WTwo Medicine — 48.65°N, 112.97°WTwo Medicine — 47.81°N, 112.18°WTwo Medicine — 47.82°N, 112.66°WTwo Medicine — 48.94°N, 112.64°WTwo Medicine — 47.77°N, 112.29°WDjadokhta — 43.66°N, 100.90°EDjadokhta — 44.16°N, 103.69°EDjadokhta — 44.05°N, 102.82°EDjadokhta — 44.00°N, 104.00°EDjadokhta — 44.23°N, 103.30°EIlek — 55.88°N, 88.00°EIlek — 55.88°N, 88.32°EIlek — 56.62°N, 91.99°EKirtland — 36.31°N, 108.08°WKirtland — 36.50°N, 108.08°WKirtland — 36.31°N, 108.05°WKirtland — 36.51°N, 108.32°WPrince Creek — 70.07°N, 151.58°WPrince Creek — 69.60°N, 151.80°WPrince Creek — 70.09°N, 151.54°WPrince Creek — 69.83°N, 151.52°WFerris — 41.94°N, 106.85°WFerris — 41.95°N, 106.89°WWapiti — 55.26°N, 118.51°WWapiti — 55.06°N, 119.11°WWapiti — 55.05°N, 119.37°WWapiti — 55.07°N, 118.69°WCerro del Pueblo — 26.12°N, 101.12°WCerro del Pueblo — 25.54°N, 101.36°WCerro del Pueblo — 25.61°N, 101.98°WNemegt — 43.60°N, 100.46°ENemegt — 43.49°N, 101.28°ENemegt — 43.54°N, 99.60°ENemegt — 43.32°N, 99.83°ETiaojishan — 40.92°N, 119.65°ETiaojishan — 40.59°N, 119.43°ETiaojishan — 40.87°N, 119.99°EWulansuhai — 40.76°N, 107.43°EWulansuhai — 41.29°N, 103.88°EWulansuhai — 41.74°N, 106.74°EKakanaut — 62.87°N, 177.07°ESînpetru — 45.55°N, 22.92°EAdamantina — 21.60°S, 51.17°WAdamantina — 21.74°S, 51.03°WRâul Mare — 45.57°N, 22.87°EOjo Alamo — 36.24°N, 108.89°WMorrison — 40.42°N, 109.21°WMorrison — 42.63°N, 105.44°W

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The named rock units Troodontidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 34 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 3 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Troodontidae and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

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

Found in the same rock

1,167 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 222 sites for Troodontidae, 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

142 references

Each of the 250 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. 130 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 Troodontidae

Credit
File:Mei Long.jpg ( Bruce McAdam ) File:Alaskan_troodont.jpg ( bryan... from Taipei, Taiwan) File:Sinovenator-Tianjin…
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Troodontidae 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 itDeinonychosauria through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gilmore 1924