Valdosaurus

Valdosaurus is a genus of bipedal herbivorous dryosaurid dinosaur known from the Early Cretaceous of the Isle of Wight and elsewhere in England. Originally its remains were believed to belong to Hypsilophodon. In 1889, Richard Lydekker assigned them to Camptosaurus, alongside a partial lower jaw, and applied the name Camptosaurus valdensis. In the 1970s, Peter Galton reassigned these remains to a new species of Dryosaurus, then to an entirely new genus and species, that being Valdosaurus proper. The type and only species of Valdosaurus, named by Galton, is V. canaliculatus.

Valdosaurus

DaCaTaraptor · 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
Sits inside
DryosauridaePBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Ornithopoda
Life habit
ground dwelling, gregariousPBDB, for Ornithischia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Ornithischia
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Ornithischia
Length
3 mWikidata

Time the record covers

At least 17 million years on record.

The record covers at least 143.1 Mya to 125.77 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 154.8 Mya to 119.57 Mya.

Late Jurassic — about 1 of 12 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 11 of 12 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous156–154 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences154–153 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences153–152 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences152–151 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences151–149 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences149–148 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences148–147 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences147–146 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences146–145 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences145–143 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences143–142 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences137–136 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences136–135 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences135–134 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences134–132 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences132–131 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences131–130 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences130–129 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences129–127 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences127–126 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences126–125 Mya — about 1 occurrence125–124 Mya — about 1 occurrence124–123 Mya — about 1 occurrence123–121 Mya — about 1 occurrence121–120 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences120–119 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences143.1 Mya125.77 Mya155.5 Mya118.9 Mya

12 occurrences of Valdosaurus on record, most of them in the Early 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

12 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

5 formations

Wessex — 50.63°N, 1.40°WWessex — 50.66°N, 1.47°WTunbridge Wells Sand — 51.09°N, 0.17°WTunbridge Wells Sand — 51.09°N, 0.30°WTunbridge Wells Sand — 51.04°N, 0.37°WWeald Clay — 50.95°N, 0.27°EWeald Clay — 51.10°N, 0.32°WVillar del Arzobispo — 40.67°N, 0.88°WCastrillo de la Reina — 42.01°N, 3.33°W

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

Valdosaurus and its relatives

Early Cretaceous

Where Valdosaurus and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

24 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 12 sites for Valdosaurus, 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

8 references

Each of the 12 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 Valdosaurus

Credit
DaCaTaraptor
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Valdosaurus 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 itDryosauridae through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Galton 1977