Shanxia

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Shanxia
Temporal occurrence
Upper Cretaceous ( Maastrichtian )
72 to 66 million years
Locations
Systematics
Pelvic dinosaur (Ornithischia)
Thyreophora
Eurypoda
Ankylosauria
Nodosauridae
Shanxia
Scientific name
Shanxia
Barrett , You , Upchurch & Burton , 1998
Art
  • Shanxia tianzhenensis Barrett et al., 1998

Shanxia is a little known genus of bird pelvis dinosaur (Ornithischia) from the group of Ankylosauria .

features

From Shanxia only fragments of are far skull , some vertebrae , parts of the basin as well as individual limb bones known. From these finds, the length of the animal can be estimated at around 3.5 meters. The most prominent characteristic of this dinosaur were the slender, elongated horn-like outgrowths on the squamosal (squamosal) - a cranial bone - sat. Similar horn-like outgrowths are also known from other ankylosaurs, but these are usually shorter and thicker than in Shanxia . The rest of the body is likely to correspond to that of the other Ankylosauria, so the stocky trunk was probably covered with armor made of bone plates. The dinosaur moved quadruped (on all fours) and ate plants.

Discovery and naming

The fossil remains of Shanxia were discovered in the Huiquanpu Formation in the Chinese province of Shanxi and first described in 1998 . The name is derived from the place where it was found, type species and the only known species is S. tianzhenensis . The finds are dated to the late Upper Cretaceous ( Maastrichtian ).

Systematics

The systematic status of Shanxia is controversial. According to some researchers, it could be a synonym of Tianzhenosaurus , which comes from the same formation. Vickaryous, M. et al. (2004) therefore use Shanxia as a noun dubium .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Dougal Dixon : The World Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs & Prehistoric Creatures. Lorenz, London 2007, ISBN 978-0-7548-1730-7 , p. 380.