Dino card No. 1659 of 2,027

Silvisaurus

Say it: sil-vi-SORE-us

Name means: “woodland lizard”1

Ate: PlantsArmoured dinosEarly Cretaceous

Silvisaurus was a plant-eating dinosaur covered in bony armor plates and spikes. It lived in warm forests in what is now Kansas, USA, about 100 million years ago.2 1

Lived

106 to 100 million years ago4

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Ottawa County, Kansas, USA2

Food

Plants4 2

Length

3 to 4 m1 2

estimated from incomplete skeleton

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

as long as 2 bicycles in a rowas long as 22 bananas end to end

How big was Silvisaurus compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Silvisaurus had teeth at the front of its jaw, which is unusual because most later nodosaurs had a toothless beak.1

Its skull was about 33 centimeters (13 inches) long and 25 centimeters (9.8 inches) wide.1

It had large air passages in its head, which scientists think might have been used for loud calls to communicate.1

The only known fossil was found at the bottom of a dry riverbed, and the bones were weathered and trampled by cattle before they were collected.1

Fossil leaves found in the same rock layer show that Silvisaurus lived in a warm, temperate forest.2

Silvisaurus was named the official state land fossil of Kansas in 2023.1

AI-made picture of Silvisaurus — An AI-made picture of how Silvisaurus might have looked, made by a computer from what scientists know. It is a guess: the real animal may have looked different, and nobody knows its true colours.

you asked

Most asked questions about Silvisaurus

?How big was Silvisaurus?

Silvisaurus was about 4 metres (13 feet) long. That is roughly the length of a small car.1 3

?What did Silvisaurus eat?

Silvisaurus was a plant-eater (herbivore). It ate plants like the ferns and leaves that grew in its warm forest home.3 2

?Did Silvisaurus have armor?

Yes, Silvisaurus had bony armor plates and spikes on its body, including possible spikes on its shoulders and tail. It was a nodosaur, a type of armored dinosaur.1 2

?Where was Silvisaurus found?

The only known Silvisaurus fossil was found in Ottawa County, Kansas, USA. It was discovered in a dry riverbed in the Dakota Formation.1 2

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Silvisaurus
Named by: Eaton 19604
Group: Armoured dinos
Family / clade: Nodosauridae4
Classification: Ornithischia > Ankylosauria > Nodosauridae > Thyreophora4
Age of the rocks: 106 to 100 million years (Albian)4
Rock formations: Dakota4
Countries: USA4
Fossil records: 2 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: Rancher Warren W. Condray found the fossil in the 1950s in Kansas. He told Senator Frank Carlson, who contacted the University of Kansas, and in 1960 Theodore H. Eaton Jr. named it Silvisaurus condrayi.1
Still debated: Scientists are still debating exactly how Silvisaurus is related to other nodosaurs, and whether it had spikes on its shoulders and tail.1

Where the facts come from

Silvisaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
Silvisaurus | GeoKansas (geokansas.ku.edu)
Silvisaurus | Natural History Museum (nhm.ac.uk)
Silvisaurus in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

Every fact on this page has a number that points to its source. If we got something wrong, sorry, we are dino fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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