Chilantaisaurus Chilantaisaurus

Chilantaisaurus (” lizard”) is an extinct genus of large theropod dinosaur that lived in present-day China during the Late Cretaceous period. It was described by Chinese paleontologist Hu Show-Yung in 1964. The genus contains a single valid species, C. tashuikouensis, though several other species have been assigned to the genus. C. tashuikouensis is known from a single, incomplete postcranial skeleton, the holotype specimen. This specimen was found by a joint Sino-Soviet expedition to Inner Mongolia in rock layers coming from the Ulansuhai Formation. This indicates these fossils date to the Santonian or Campanian stages of the Cretaceous period, around 85.7 to 72.2 million years ago. However, the age of the Ulansuhai Formation is debated.

Chilantaisaurus was around 11 m in length and weighed 2.5 – 4 MT. This makes it among the largest known theropod genera, comparable to Tyrannosaurus.