Dinosaurs A to Z
Tenontosauridae

Tenontosaurus tilletti tih-nontuh-SƆːRUHS

"sinew lizard"

Generic ornithopod body-plan outline
You 1.8 m (5.9 ft) tall
Tenontosaurus 6 m (19.7 ft) long
as long as 4 people standing fingertip to fingertip
generic ornithopod body plan, scaled to length — not a silhouette of Tenontosaurus
Length
6 m (19.7 ft)
Period
Early Cretaceous (115–108 Mya)
Place
North America
Food
Herbivore
Clade
Tenontosauridae
Tenontosaurus reconstruction by Nobu Tamura (http://spinops.blogspot.com)
Reconstruction · Nobu Tamura (http://spinops.blogspot.com) (CC-BY)

Tenontosaurus ( ; “sinew lizard”) is a genus of iguanodontian ornithopod dinosaur. It had an unusually long, broad tail, which like its back was stiffened with a network of bony tendons. The genus is known from the late Aptian to Albian ages of the Early Cretaceous period sediments of western North America, dating between 115 and 108 million years ago. It contains two species, Tenontosaurus tilletti (described by John Ostrom in 1970) and Tenontosaurus dossi (described by Winkler, Murry, and Jacobs in 1997). Many specimens of T. tilletti have been collected from several geological formations throughout western North America. T. dossi is known from only a handful of specimens collected from the Twin Mountains Formation of Parker County, Texas.

What we know

  • Named by Ostrom, 1970.
  • Body length estimated at about 6 m.
  • Fossils found in North America.

What we guess

The reconstruction notes for Tenontosaurus — soft tissue, color, behavior — haven't been written up yet. Only the recorded basics above are filled in so far.