In Depth
Although based only upon the description of the braincase, it has been enough to not only identify Nebulasaurus as a new eusauropod dinosaur, but also further hints that during the middle Jurassic Asia had a very diverse range of sauropod dinosaurs. By the late Jurassic this diverse range seems to have thinned out in favour of mamenchisaurid sauropods (those similar to Mamenchisaurus).
The braincase of Nebulasaurus has been noted as showing a great similarity to another genus named Spinophorosaurus which is known from Africa. Spinophorosaurus is known by much more complete remains which include a set of short spikes that were situated on the end of the tail like the thagomizer of a stegosaur. This leads to the question, if Spinophorosaurus had a thagomizer, did Nebulasaurus have a thagomizer too? Unfortunately, unless a tail of Nebulasaurus is ever found, we simply can’t say for certain, but there was a another genus of sauropod living slightly later in the middle Jurassic than Nebulasaurus in China named Shunosaurus, that actually had a spiked tail club.
Further Reading
- A new basal eusauropod from the Middle Jurassic of Yunnan, China, and faunal compositions and transitions of Asian sauropodomorph dinosaurs - Acta Palaeontologica Polonica - L. Xing, T. Miyashita, P. J Currie, H. You & Z. Dong - 2013.
