Qianjiangsaurus changshengi
"[[Qianjiang, Chongqing"
- Length
- 8 m (26.2 ft)
- Period
- Late Cretaceous (84 Mya)
- Place
- China · Mongolia
- Food
- Herbivore
- Clade
- Dinosauria The clade containing all dinosaurs, terrestrial archosaurs with upright limbs.
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.
What we guess
The reconstruction notes for Qianjiangsaurus — soft tissue, color, behavior — haven't been written up yet. Only the recorded basics above are filled in so far.