Gongbusaurus is a genus of ornithischian, perhaps ornithopod, dinosaur that lived between about 160 and 155 million years ago, in the Late Jurassic period. A small herbivore, it is very poorly known. Two species have been assigned to it, but as the original name is based on teeth, there is no concrete evidence to connect the two species. Its fossils have been found in China.
Description[]
Gongbusaurus, by extrapolation from the remains of possible species "G." wucaiwanensis and other basal ornithopods, was a herbivorous bipedal animal around 1.3 to 1.5 meters long (4.3 to 4.9 ft). The tibia of "G." wucaiwanensis is 19.5 centimetres long. It would have been a strong runner.
Classification[]
Dong Zhiming, Zhou Shiwu, and Zhang Zicheng, who originally described the type species G. shiyii, thought it was most similar to Fabrosaurus and assigned it to the nebulous Fabrosauridae.[2] Upon description of the second species "G." wucaiwanensis several years later, Dong elected to assign it to Hypsilophodontidae, an equally nebulous (paraphyletic) family of somewhat more derived small bipedal ornithischians,[1] while at about the same time, David B. Weishampel and Larry Witmer found Gongbusaurus to be an indeterminate basal ornithischian.[3] The most recent reviews also found the genus to be a dubious ornithischian,[4] and recommended renaming the better-known second species.[5] Peter Galton has noted that the teeth on which Gongbusaurus is based resemble those of Sarcolestes and Gastonia, so the genus may actually be an ankylosaurian.