Huabeisaurus
Name:
Huabeisaurus
(Huabei lizard).
Phonetic: Hu-ah-bay-sore-us.
Named By: Q. Pang & Z. Cheng -
2000.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia, Dinosauria,
Saurischia, Sauropoda, Euhelopodidae.
Species: H. allocotus
(type).
Diet: Herbivore.
Size: About 20 meters long.
Known locations: China, Shanxi Province -
Huiquanpu Formation.
Time period: Cenomanian to Campanian of the
Cretaceous.
Fossil representation: Based upon an almost complete
and semi articulated post cranial skeleton.
Named
very early in the twenty-first century, Huabeisaurus
has fast become
one of the big names amongst the Asian sauropods.
This is mostly
because that so far Huabeisaurus is one of the most
complete sauropods
to come out of Asia, and this in turn has actually caused many
palaeontologists to question the family classification of many Asian
sauropods. This is because the three main groups of Asian sauropods
are usually classed between the Nemegtosauridae, Opisthocoelicaudinae
and Euhelopodidae (named after Nemegtosaurus,
Opisthocoelicaudia
and Euhelopus
respectively), and the former of these,
Euhelopodidae is usually the family group that Huabeisaurus
is
assigned to.
The
problem between these groups however is that they were established when
there were relatively few Asian known, but now stretching from
Thailand, across China and over to Japan, there are now many Asian
genera of sauropods known, and the number continues to rise. One
bit of knowledge gleaned from all this discoveries as that the classic
family groups of Asian sauropods are not as distinctive between one
another as once thought, and that it is extremely likely that in the
future some of the genera assigned to these groups will be split to
form new groups. In fact when the description of Huabeisaurus
was
first published, the original describers suggested that Huabeisaurus
should be combined with the genus Tangvayosaurus
to establish a new
group of Asian sauropods named the Huabeisauridae. Although not taken
up by other palaeontologists, the new family was again proposed in a
2013 osteology report on Huabeisaurus.
Huabeisaurus
appears to have been a mid-sized sauropod dinosaur, and estimated to
have attained a length of about twenty meters. However, lack of
complete bone fusion on the vertebrae of the holotype indicates that
the type specimen was not yet fully grown at the time of death. It’s
certain that individuals of Huabeisaurus could have
grown larger than
this, but by how much is unknown, but probably somewhere between
twenty and twenty-five meters depending upon the individual. Only the
discovery of more individuals of Huabeisaurus
however will allow for a
confirmed upper size for the genus.
Huabeisaurus
has been confirmed as living alongside dinosaurs along the lines of
ankylosaurs,
hadrosaurs
and theropods, though many of the fossils
of these from the same formation as Huabeisaurus
are usually too
indeterminate to identify a genus.
Further reading
- The preliminary report on Late Cretaceous dinosaur fauna
expeditions in Tianzhen, Shanxi. - Journal of Hebei College of
Geology 19 (3–4): 227–235. - Q. Pang, Z. Cheng,
J. yang, M. Xie, C. Zhu & J. Luo - 1996.
- A new family of sauropod dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous of
Tianzhen, Shanxi province, China. - Acta Geologica Sinica 74
(2): 117–125. - Q. Pang & Z. Cheng - 2000.
- Osteology of Huabeisaurus allocotus
(Sauropoda:
Titanosauriformes) from the Upper Cretaceous of China. - PLoS
ONE 8 (8): e69375. - M. D. D'Emic, P. D.
Mannion, P. Upchurch, R. B. J. Bensos, Q. Pang
& Z. Cheng - 2013.
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