Jinzhousaurus

Jinzhousaurus
Temporal range: Early Cretaceous, 122 Ma
↓
Jinzhousaurus yangi fossil displayed in Hong Kong Science Museum.
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Sauropsida
Superorder: Dinosauria
Order: Ornithischia
Suborder: Cerapoda
Infraorder: Ornithopoda
Superfamily: Hadrosauroidea?
Genus: Jinzhousaurus
Wang & Xu, 2001
Species
  • J. yangi Wang & Xu, 2001 (type

Jinzhousaurus is a genus of hadrosauroid dinosaur of the Early Cretaceous of China.

The type (and only known) species is Jinzhousaurus yangi. The generic name refers to the town Jinzhou. The specific name honours Yang Zhongjian as the founder of Chinese paleontology. It was first described by Wang Xiao-lin and Xu Xing in 2001.[1]

Discovery

Skull of the holotype

Its fossil, holotype IVPP V12691, was found near Baicaigou in Yixian County in the Dawangzhangzi Beds of the Yixian Formation in Liaoning, China, having an oldest determinable age of 122 million years, during the early Aptian stage of the early Cretaceous Period.[2] It consists of a nearly complete skeleton, compressed on a slab.

Description

Jinzhousaurus has a length of about 7 metres (23 ft) and its skull is about half a metre long. Its snout was elongated with large nares and lacking an antorbital fenestra. The back of the skull was uncommonly wide with a small crest on top. The dentary of the lower jaw has at least seventeen tooth positions.

Classification

Jinzhousaurus shows a mix of basal and derived features. Originally assigned to (an already understood to be paraphyletic) Iguanodontidae, later authors have referred it to the more general Iguanodontoidea. In 2010 a study concluded it was within this group a basal member of the, more derived, Hadrosauroidea.[3]

References

  1. ↑ Wang, X.-L. & Xu, X. (2001) "A new iguanodontid (Jinzhousaurus yangi gen. et sp. nov.) from the Yixian Formation of western Liaoning, China." Chin. Sci. Bull., 46: 1669–1672.
  2. ↑ Zhou, Z. (2006). "Evolutionary radiation of the Jehol Biota: chronological and ecological perspectives." Geological Journal, 41: 377-393.
  3. ↑ A.T. McDonald, D. G. Wolfe, and J. I. Kirkland, 2010, "A new basal hadrosauroid (Dinosauria: Ornithopoda) from the Turonian of New Mexico", Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 30(3): 799-812
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