Zhongyuansaurus
Name:
Zhongyuansaurus
(Zhongyuan lizard).
Phonetic: Zhong-won-sore-us.
Named By: Li Xu, Lu Junchang, Zhang Xingliao,
Jia Songhai, Hu Weiyong, Zhang Jiming, Wu Yanhua & Ji
Qiang - 2007.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia, Dinosauria,
Onithischia, Thyreophora, Ankylosauria, Ankylosauridae,
Ankylosaurinae.
Species: Z. luoyangensis
(type).
Diet: Herbivore.
Size: Uncertain.
Known locations: China, Henan Province -
Mangchuan Formation.
Time period: Cenomanian to Turonian of the
Cretaceous.
Fossil representation: Partial skull and post
cranial remains.
Like with Liaoningosaurus, Zhongyuansaurus was first described as a nodosaurid, but later identified as an ankylosaurid. Further study has identified Zhongyuansaurus as the most basal (primitive) ankylosaurine, the group of ankylosaurs that contains the more advance forms that began to appear as the Cretaceous progressed. So basal in fact was Zhongyuansaurus, that it didn’t even have the club on the end of its tail that is such a familiar feature for most other ankylosaurine genera.
Further reading
- New nodosaurid ankylosaur from the Cretaceous of Ruyang, Henan
Province, Li Xu, Lu Junchang, Zhang Xingliao, Jia Songhai, Hu
Weiyong, Zhang Jiming, Wu Yanhua & Ji Qiang - 2007.
- Ankylosaurs from the Price River Quarries, Cedar Mountain
Formation (Lower Cretaceous), east-central Utah, Kenneth
Carpenter, Jeff Bartlett, John Bird & Reese Barrick -
2008
- Phylogeny of the ankylosaurian dinosaurs (Ornithischia:
Thyreophora), Richard S. Thompson, Jolyon C. Parish,
Susannah C. R. Maidment and Paul M. Barrett - 2011.
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