Help wanted!

[SpittersForEver]

I need some help for a book that I'm writing,
Which dinosaur lived alongside Camarasaurus and Ouranosaurus?
It is a bit of a newbish question but I am not good with the dates and places of where the dinosaurs lived.
Thank you very much!

[amargasaurus cazaui]

I need some help for a book that I'm writing,
Which dinosaur lived alongside Camarasaurus and Ouranosaurus?
It is a bit of a newbish question but I am not good with the dates and places of where the dinosaurs lived.
Thank you very much!

Camarasaurus would be a North American Sauropod, whereas Ouranosaurus at this point at least for now, is being classified as a basal Hadrosaur, from the African continent. Camarasaurus would have lived roughly 150 million years ago , and Ouranosaurus close to 110 million years ago.
Camarasaurus would have been comtempary with Barosaurus, diplodocus,apatosaurus, brachiosaurus, Saurophaganax, Torvosaurus, Ceratosaurus, Marshosaurus, Stokesosaurus, Ornitholestes and Allosaurus, and you can toss in stegosaurus for good measure .
Ouranosaurus, would have shared the stage with Spinosaurus, at least.....

[Gwangi]

Ouranosaurus actually would have lived a couple million years before Spinosaurus. To find out who lived with whom look up the formation in which they were found. In the case of Ouranosaurus that would be the Elrhaz Formation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elrhaz_Formation
A few well known dinosaurs there, Nigersaurus and Suchomimus to name a couple.

[amargasaurus cazaui]

Just glanced at wiki for my answers and I know the general hits wiki takes for credibility but they place Ouranosaurus at 110 MYA and Spinosaurus E , as 112-97 MYA which gives a pretty decent overlap IF the information is accurate...which might be the precise problem too. I am sure you found a far better source for your answer Gwangi, so I stand corrected.
However I did give myself an out, in my answer, by just stating Spinosaurus, which could include about any member of that family and range from 155-93 MYA  and provide a much larger temporral range, although even then I should have said Spinosaurids instead.

[brandem]

Well ouranosaurus was 110 mya, and if spinosaurus falls in a span of 112 mya-97mya so if that's the case there is definitely overlap, and 2 million years isn't to long for a species to remain extant provided it's well adapted and it's environment remains stable.

[Gwangi]

Wikipedia was my source too so don't feel bad. I know there is only a two million year gap (only two million years!) so yes, their could have been some overlap there. A lot can change in two million years but a lot can stay the same too so who knows. "Planet Dinosaur" put them together so take that for what you will.

[brandem]

There was also a distance gap between them too, that could mean nothing or everything

[Dinoguy2]

Just glanced at wiki for my answers and I know the general hits wiki takes for credibility but they place Ouranosaurus at 110 MYA and Spinosaurus E , as 112-97 MYA which gives a pretty decent overlap IF the information is accurate...which might be the precise problem too. I am sure you found a far better source for your answer Gwangi, so I stand corrected.
However I did give myself an out, in my answer, by just stating Spinosaurus, which could include about any member of that family and range from 155-93 MYA  and provide a much larger temporral range, although even then I should have said Spinosaurids instead.

Nope, Wiki is wrong in this case, the formation Ouranosaurus and Suchomimus lived in is not well dated but is anywhere between 125 and 112 million years ago. Sucho and Spino did not live side by side as far as we know, and Ouranosaurus lived side by side with Sucho.

I'll go fix Wiki now and give a better reference for the age...

Wikipedia was my source too so don't feel bad. I know there is only a two million year gap (only two million years!) so yes, their could have been some overlap there. A lot can change in two million years but a lot can stay the same too so who knows. "Planet Dinosaur" put them together so take that for what you will.

Spinosaur teeth have long been known from the same deposits as Ouranosaurus, and naturally these were assumed to be from Spinosaurus itself, so those two have long been shown living together. We now know there was more than one spinosaurid in North Africa in the early to mid-Cretaceous and the one from the formations concerned is now known to be suchomimus, not Spinosaurus, but old habits die hard and TV producers can't help put cool looking animals in the same episode even if they didn't live together in reality

Note that Wiki currently lists Spinosaurus existing from 112-97 million years ago. That's a temporal range of a whopping 15 million years, which would be more than 10 times longer than any theropod species well known enough to be sure. Note also most of this is based on vaguely similar jaw fragments and teeth. As we find more, you can guarantee this 15 million year long-lived Spinosaurus will turn into about 15 1 million long-lived different species.

The holotype Spinosaurus is from the Cenomanian (~97 million year old) Bahariya formation, so really it should only be shown with animals from that formation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahariya_Formation Spinosaurids from the earlier formations might even be an evolutionary grade where Suchomimus evolves INTO Spinosaurus over 15 million years.

The problem with these desert formations too is that there are not a lot of volcanic deposits which are necessary for dating to the relative ages are all rough guesstimates, though the separation between them all is fairly well studied.

[SpittersForEver]

Well thanks everyone, my question is answered!

[Gwangi]

Thanks for the info Dinoguy, good stuff.

[HD-man]

Spinosaur teeth have long been known from the same deposits as Ouranosaurus, and naturally these were assumed to be from Spinosaurus itself, so those two have long been shown living together. We now know there was more than one spinosaurid in North Africa in the early to mid-Cretaceous and the one from the formations concerned is now known to be suchomimus, not Spinosaurus, but old habits die hard and TV producers can't help put cool looking animals in the same episode even if they didn't live together in reality

That isn't why "Planet Dinosaur" put them together (See the Tommo quote).

Note that Wiki currently lists Spinosaurus existing from 112-97 million years ago. That's a temporal range of a whopping 15 million years, which would be more than 10 times longer than any theropod species well known enough to be sure. Note also most of this is based on vaguely similar jaw fragments and teeth. As we find more, you can guarantee this 15 million year long-lived Spinosaurus will turn into about 15 1 million long-lived different species.

I get what you're saying, but it seems a bit much to "guarantee this 15 million year long-lived Spinosaurus will turn into about 15 1 million long-lived different species." It could also turn out to be 5 different species that lived 3 million years each (Quoting Kricher: "Based on the average species longevity of extant animals compared to dinosaurs , the estimate is that a given species of dinosaur might have been around for anywhere from 3 to 5 million years").

Quoting Tommo ( http://chasmosaurs.blogspot.com/2011/09/planet-dinosaur-episode-one-review.html ):

As far as Ouranosaurus goes - Well... Whilst the holotype of Ouranosaurus was found in beds several million years older than Spinosaurus, Iguanodontid footprints have been been found in the Kem Kem beds in Morocco, which was the fauna that we based this episode on. But this raises a fundamental problem with making stories based on fossils - Inevitably, any fossil baring horizon will only give you a partial picture of the animals that one might reasonably expect were there - you will never get a full picture. Strict adherence to even the best preserved environments will always be a distortion of sorts. As programme makers, the best we can hope for is to listen to the experts, be open and honest about our sources and make our best guess in a dramatic and entertaining context. Which is exactly what we've done on this show. We've depicted a cretaceous North African fauna, as a fascinating and complex environment with all its ecological niches and environmental pressures, in a way that - I hope - people have enjoyed.