Outline: a typical early ornithischian
Oryctodromeus
oh-RIK-toh-DROH-mee-us
"digging runner"
- Lived
- 106 to 94 million years ago, Early Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous
- Diet
- Herbivore
- Length
- about 2.1 m (7 ft)
- Group
- Early ornithischians, Thescelosauridae
- Found in
- United States
- Named by
- Varricchio et al. 2007
Size comparison
To scale
Scale in metersOutline: typical early ornithischian shape
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
100 million years ago
Field notes
About Oryctodromeus
What it was like
Oryctodromeus was a small plant eater about 2.1 meters (7 feet) long. It had strong shoulders and a snout suited to digging, and it is the first dinosaur shown to have lived in burrows.
Its world
It lived about 106 to 94 million years ago, in the middle of the Cretaceous, in what is now Montana and Idaho. Its bones come from the Blackleaf and Wayan formations. The plant eater Tenontosaurus lived in the same region.
How it was found
Varricchio and colleagues named Oryctodromeus in 2007. The first find was an adult and two young animals preserved inside a filled-in burrow. This suggests that parents may have cared for their young.
Lived alongside
Found in the same rock formations
Close relatives
Other members of Thescelosauridae
Sources: WikidataNamed in: D. J. Varricchio, A. J. Martin, and Y. Katsura. 2007. First trace and body fossil evidence of a burrowing, denning dinosaur. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 274:1361-1368