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Chinchenia

Say it: chin-CHEN-ee-ah

Name means: “of Chinchen, an old name for the city of Qingzhen in China”1

Ate: MeatSea reptilesMiddle TriassicNot technically a dinosaur

Chinchenia was a marine reptile that swam in the seas of China about 247 to 237 million years ago. It was a pistosauroid, a relative of the long-necked plesiosaurs. Only a few scattered bones have been found, so scientists are still learning about it.1 2

Fun fact: this sea reptile swam while dinosaurs walked on land. Everyone calls them dinos, but they were a different branch of reptiles.

Lived

247 to 237 million years ago3

Middle Triassic

Fossils found in

Guizhou Province, southwestern China1 2

Food

Meat1

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

cool stuff

Fun facts

Chinchenia is known from at least four very incomplete skeletons, all found together near Qingzhen in China.1

The name Chinchenia comes from Chinchen, an old spelling of the city of Qingzhen where the fossils were discovered.1

Chinchenia lived during the Middle Triassic period, about 247 to 237 million years ago.2

The main fossil used to describe Chinchenia is the front part of a left lower jaw with five broken teeth.1

Chinchenia was a basal pistosauroid, meaning it was an early relative of the long-necked plesiosaurs that came later.1

All Chinchenia fossils are kept at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in China.1

AI-made picture of Chinchenia — An AI-made picture of how Chinchenia might have looked, made by a computer from what scientists know. It is a guess: the real animal may have looked different, and nobody knows its true colours.

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Chinchenia
Named by: Young 19653
Group: Sea reptiles
Family / clade: Pistosauroidea3
Classification: Sauropterygia3
Age of the rocks: 247 to 237 million years ()3
Countries: China3
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Chinchenia was named by Chinese paleontologist Yang Zhongjian (also known as Chung-Chien Young) in 1965. The fossils were collected near Cangxi Bridge at Shangpu, about 7 km west of Qingzhen in Guizhou Province.1
Still debated: Scientists are not sure exactly how big Chinchenia was, because only scattered bones have been found. They also debate whether it lived in the Anisian or Ladinian age of the Triassic.1

Where the facts come from

Chinchenia (en.wikipedia.org)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Chinchenia in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

Every fact on this page has a number that points to its source. If we got something wrong, sorry, we are dino fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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