Wannanosaurus Wannanosaurus
"Wannan lizard"
- Length
- 5 m (16.4 ft)
- Period
- Late Cretaceous (72.1–69 Mya)
- Place
- North America · Asia · China
- Food
- Omnivore
- Clade
- Dinosauria
Wannanosaurus (meaning “Wannan lizard”, named after the location where it was discovered) is a genus of basal pachycephalosaurian dinosaur from the Maastrichtian-aged (Upper Cretaceous) Xiaoyan Formation, about 70 million years ago, in what is now Anhui, China. The type species Wannanosaurus yansiensis was described by Hou Lian-Hai in 1977.
It is known from a single partial skeleton, including a partial skull roof and lower jaw, a femur and tibia, part of a rib, and other fragments. Because it has a flat skull roof with large openings, it has been considered primitive among pachycephalosaurs. Sometimes it has been classified as a member of the now-deprecated family Homalocephalidae, now thought to be an unnatural assembly of pachycephalosaurs without domed skulls.
What we know
- Named by Hou, 1977.
- Fossils found in North America and Asia.