Sanxiasaurus
"Sanxia lizard"
- Length
- 5 m (16.4 ft)
- Period
- Middle Jurassic (170 Mya)
- Place
- Asia · China
- Food
- Herbivore
- Clade
- Dinosauria The clade containing all dinosaurs, terrestrial archosaurs with upright limbs.
Sanxiasaurus (meaning “Sanxia lizard”, after the Three Gorges, Chinese Sanxia, of the Yangtze River) is a genus of neornithischian dinosaur from the Middle Jurassic Xintiangou Formation in the Chongqing Municipality of China. The type and only species is S. modaoxiensis. The holotype is a partial postcranial skeleton consisting of 55 bones including two cervical vertebrae, 11 dorsal vertebrae, 4 sacral vertebrae, 18 caudal vertebrae, both humeri, radii, and ulnas, partial right ilium, partial right ischium, both femora and tibiae, left fibula, 3 metatarsi and 4 phalanges. In a phylogenetic analysis, it was found to be a basal neornithischian, more derived than Lesothosaurus and less derived than Hexinlusaurus.
What we know
- Named by Li et al., 2019.
- Body length estimated at about 5 m.
- Fossils found in Asia and China.
What we guess
The reconstruction notes for Sanxiasaurus — soft tissue, color, behavior — haven't been written up yet. Only the recorded basics above are filled in so far.