Tsintaosaurus
| Tsintaosaurus | ||||||||||||
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Live reconstruction of Tsintaosaurus |
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Upper Cretaceous ( Campanium ) | ||||||||||||
| 83.6 to 72 million years | ||||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Tsintaosaurus | ||||||||||||
| Young , 1958 | ||||||||||||
| Art | ||||||||||||
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Tsintaosaurus is a genus of bird's pelvis dinosaur from the group of Hadrosauridae thatlivedin China during the Upper Cretaceous ( Campanium ). The peculiar skull attachment is striking, the exact appearance of which is still unclear.
features
Tsintaosaurus reached a length of around 10 meters. As with all hadrosaurs, its head was characterized by a duck-like widened and flattened snout, in which rows of teeth ensured that the plant food was properly chopped up. He moved mostly on all fours, but could also stand up on two legs.
The biggest puzzle is the shape of the head. Tsintaosaurus belongs to the group of Lambeosaurinae , whose heads were characterized by tubular or comb-shaped structures. The usual depiction shows Tsintaosaurus with a unicorn-like crest that protruded above the eyes. Later it was assumed that this horn was lying horizontally on the top of the skull, but afterwards another specimen with the horn protruding upwards was found. The fact that Tsintaosaurus had a conspicuous crest of the skull is largely beyond doubt, but its exact appearance is still controversial. It is also possible that a flap of skin ran from the horn to the beak.
Discovery and systematics
The first fossils were described in 1958 by the Chinese paleontologist Yang Zhongjian (also known as CC Young). The genus is named after the Chinese city of Qingdao (formerly Tsingtao), near which the first specimens were found. The specific epithet spinorhinus ("spiked nose ") alludes to the presumed shape of the skull. Other species have been described, but are probably only synonyms of T. spinorhinus .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Gregory S. Paul : The Princeton Field Guide To Dinosaurs. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ et al. 2010, ISBN 978-0-691-13720-9 , p. 308, online .