The white sandstone in the Clynelish quarry belongs to the Brora Formation, of the Callovian and Oxfordian stages (formerly Middle Oolite) of the Mid-Late Jurassic.
This specimen was collected from the middle Callovian–age (Middle Jurassic) Peterborough Member (former Lower Oxford Clay) of the Oxford Clay Formation of Fletton, near Peterborough in Cambridgeshire, England.
It lived during the Bathonian to Callovian stages, around 165 million years ago, some 20 million years before its famous relative, Stegosaurus appeared in North America.
It is known from a nearly complete skeleton with a skull found at Wawmda, in the Middle Jurassic (Bathonian-Callovian) Tiougguit Formation, Azilal Province, Tadla-Azilal region, Morocco.
One tooth, found near Boulogne-sur-Mer, France in layers dating from the Callovian, was named Liopleurodon ferox, another from Charly, France was named Liopleurodon grossouvrei, while a third discovered near Caen, France was originally described as Poikilopleuron bucklandi and ascribed by Sauvage to the species Liopleurodon bucklandi.
During the Middle Jurassic, Bathonian and Callovian, the stretching of the crust between North and South America created a broad basin within the continental crust that opened initially to the Pacific Ocean and later to the Atlantic Ocean.