Chialingosaurus

Chialingosaurus

Chialingosaurus Fossil range: Middle Triassic – 160 Mya
Scientific classification
Class	Sauropsida
Superorder	Dinosauria
Order	Ornithischia
Suborder	Thyreophora
Infraorder	Stegosauria
Family	Stegosauridae
Genus	Chialingosaurus Young (1959)
Species	C. kuani (type)

Chialingosaurus (meaning "Chialing Lizard") is a genus of stegosaur similar to Kentrosaurus from the Upper Shaximiao Formation, Late Jurassic beds in Sichuan Province in China. Its age makes it one of the oldest species of stegosaurs, living about 160 million years ago. Since it was an herbivore, scientists think that Chialingosaurus probably ate ferns and cycads, which were plentiful during the period when Chialingosaurus was alive. Its name is taken from the Chialing River in southern China. Perhaps growing up to four meters long and weighing just 150 kg, much less than other later stegosaurs.

Discovery and species

Chialingosaurus was collected by the geologist Kuan in 1957, in Quxian County. The dinosaur was named by paleontologist C. C. Young two years later, although only very incomplete fossilized remains of Chialingosaurus have been found, and those fossil remains belong to a juvenile. In 1969, Rodney Steel suggested that Chialingosaurus might have actually been an early ancestor of other stegosaurs, but it is difficult to tell: the type specimen, Chialingosaurus kuani is known from only one partial skeleton, the original material having been supplemented in 1978 by Zhou of the Municipal Museum of Chongqing.

References

• Dong Zhiming (1992). Dinosaurian Faunas of China. China Ocean Press, Beijing. ISBN 3-540-52084-8. 

External links

• Stegosauria