Dinosaurs A to Z
Carcharodontosauridae

Shaochilong

"shark toothed dragon"

Generic theropod body-plan outline
You 1.8 m (5.9 ft) tall
Shaochilong 5 m (16.4 ft) long
as long as 3 people standing fingertip to fingertip
generic theropod body plan, scaled to length — not a silhouette of Shaochilong
Length
5 m (16.4 ft)
Period
Early Cretaceous (145–100 Mya)
Place
China
Food
Carnivore
Clade
Carcharodontosauridae

Shaochilong (meaning “shark toothed dragon”) is an extinct genus of tetanuran theropod dinosaurs from the Early Cretaceous (Barremian to Albian stages) Miaogou Formation of China, though a more restrictive suggestion from the Aptian to the Albian has been suggested based on faunal composition. It was usually described as a carcharodontosaurid, but other phylogenies have suggested a different position as a tyrannosauroid or as a member of polytomic allosauroid. The genus contains a single species, Shaochilong maortuensis, which was originally placed in the genus Chilantaisaurus as C. maortuensis, but was re-described and reclassified in 2009.

What we know

  • Named by (Hu, 1964).
  • Fossils found in China.

What we guess

The reconstruction notes for Shaochilong — soft tissue, color, behavior — haven't been written up yet. Only the recorded basics above are filled in so far.