Dianopachysaurus

Say it: dee-AN-oh-pak-ee-SORE-us

Name means: “Dian (from Yunnan) thick lizard”1

Ate: FishOther sea reptilesMiddle TriassicNot technically a dinosaur

Dianopachysaurus was a tiny marine reptile that swam in warm seas about 245 million years ago. It looked a bit like a modern sea lizard but with a long tail and flippers. This little creature was only as long as a pencil!1

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

Lived

244 to 243 million years ago3

Middle Triassic

Fossils found in

Yunnan Province, southwestern China1

Food

Fish2

Length

0.143 to 0.2 m1

the only known fossil is 14.3 cm long but the tail tip is missing; total length estimated at about 20 cm

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How big was Dianopachysaurus compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Dianopachysaurus is a pachypleurosaur, a group of small marine reptiles that lived during the Triassic Period.1

Its closest relative is Keichousaurus, another Chinese pachypleurosaur. Both belong to the family Keichousauridae.1

The only fossil found so far is an almost complete skeleton, but the tip of the tail is missing.1

It had 20 neck vertebrae, 19 back vertebrae, 3 hip vertebrae, and at least 17 tail vertebrae.1

Dianopachysaurus lived in the eastern Tethys Ocean, which covered parts of what is now China.1

This reptile helps scientists understand how pachypleurosaurs spread from the eastern Tethys to Europe.1

AI-made picture of Dianopachysaurus — An AI-made picture of how Dianopachysaurus 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: Dianopachysaurus
Named by: Liu et al. 20113
Group: Other sea reptiles
Family / clade: Keichousauridae3
Classification: Sauropterygia3
Age of the rocks: 244 to 243 million years ()3
Rock formations: Guanling3
Countries: China3
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Dianopachysaurus was named in 2011 by a team of scientists led by Jun Liu. The only fossil was found in the Guanling Formation of Yunnan, China.1
Still debated: Scientists are not sure exactly how long the tail was, because the only known fossil is missing its tip.1

Where the facts come from

Dianopachysaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Dianopachysaurus 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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