Shidaisaurus
Name:
Shidaisaurus
(Shidai lizard - After Jin-shidai, the company that owns the
‘Jurassic World’ site where the holotype was recovered).
Phonetic: She-day-sore-us.
Named By: Wu, Currie, Dong, Pan &
Wang - 2009.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia, Dinosauria,
Saurischia, Theropoda.
Species: S. jinae (type).
Diet: Carnivore.
Size: Roughly estimated to be around 6 meters
long.
Known locations: China, Yunnan Formation -
Lufeng Formation.
Time period: Somewhere between Aalenian to Bathonian
stages of the mid Jurassic.
Fossil representation: Partial post cranial remains.
A
little
known theropod from the mid Jurassic of China, Shidaisaurus
was so
far only been described from partial remains. However, the
Shidaisaurus remains were discovered along with the
remains of
several other individual dinosaurs, and the partial remains of an
unknown theropod skull found nearby with the skeletal remains of a
sauropod has been speculated to belong to Shidaisaurus.
If correct
then this would suggest the Shidaisaurus holotype
is probably that of a
juvenile or subadult since these skull bones are not fused like they
would be in an adult. Due to its earlier appearance in the Jurassic
it has come as no surprise that Shidaisaurus was
more primitive in
form than later Asian theropods of the Jurassic like Sinraptor.
Another
Chinese dinosaur to be named after a company is Gasosaurus.
Further reading
- A new theropod dinosaur from the Middle Jurassic of Lufeng, Yunnan,
China. - Acta Geologica Sinica 83 (1): 9–24. - X.-C. Wu, P. J. Currie,
Z. Dong, S. Pan & T. Wang - 2009.
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