 It was located in the Saltwick Formation, a Mesozoic formation.Manning recovered the fossil from the base of a coastal cliff section, some 600 m east of Whitby East Pier.Although the source horizon was not definitively located, based on the relative position of the vertebra in the cliff, resting on top of the Dogger Formation, the fossil came from the Aalenian period of the Middle Jurassic and dates to 175.6 ± 2.0–171.6 ± 3.0 million years ago.