Qianjiangsaurus changshengi Qianjiangsaurus

"[[Qianjiang, Chongqing"

You 1.8 m (5.9 ft) tall
Qianjiangsaurus 8 m (26.2 ft) long
5 people holding hands
Length
8 m (26.2 ft)
Period
Late Cretaceous (84 Mya)
Place
China · Mongolia
Food
Herbivore
Clade
Dinosauria

Qianjiangsaurus (“Qianjiang lizard”) is an extinct genus of hadrosauroid ornithopod dinosaurs from the Late Cretaceous Zhengyang Formation of China. The genus contains a single species, Qianjiangsaurus changshengi, named in 2025 based on a partial skeleton and lower jaw. In 2026, a partial isolated skull was described, indicating the species has a distinctive hollow crest on its snout. This is similar to the crests of some distantly related lambeosaurine hadrosaurs, but it evolved independently, making it the first ornithopod to bear such a structure outside of Lambeosaurinae. This crest may have been used to amplify its vocalizations, as in other crest-bearing hadrosaurs. Qianjiangsaurus is one of the few hadrosauroids named from south China, and it shows faunal connections between similarly aged formations in Mongolia.

What we know

  • Named by Dai et al., 2025.
  • Body length estimated at about 8 m.
  • Fossils found in China and Mongolia.