Dinosaurs A to Z
Stegosauridae

Yanbeilong

"north of Yanmen Pass dragon"

Generic stegosaur body-plan outline
You 1.8 m (5.9 ft) tall
Yanbeilong 5 m (16.4 ft) long
as long as 3 people standing fingertip to fingertip
generic stegosaur body plan, scaled to length — not a silhouette of Yanbeilong
Length
5 m (16.4 ft)
Period
Early Cretaceous (145–100 Mya)
Place
China · Mongolia
Food
Herbivore
Clade
Stegosauridae Dinosauria Ornithischia Thyreophora Stegosauria Stegosaurus and close relatives.
Yanbeilong reconstruction by Ddinodan
Reconstruction · Ddinodan (CC-BY)

Yanbeilong (meaning “north of Yanmen Pass dragon”) is an extinct genus of stegosaurian dinosaurs from the Early Cretaceous (Albian age) Zuoyun Formation of Shanxi, China. The genus contains a single species, Yanbeilong ultimus, known from a single partial skeleton including several vertebrae and the pelvic girdle. It is one of the youngest known stegosaurs, alongside Mongolostegus from Mongolia and unnamed stegosaurine remains from the Hekou Group of China, both of which date to the Aptian–Albian ages.

What we know

  • Named by Jia et al., 2024.
  • Fossils found in China and Mongolia.

What we guess

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