Dino card No. 0881 of 2,027

Irisosaurus

Say it: eye-REE-so-SORE-us

Name means: “iridescent lizard, named after the colorful clouds of Yunnan Province, China”1 2

Ate: PlantsLong-necksEarly Jurassic

Irisosaurus was an early long-necked dinosaur that lived in what is now China. It walked on four legs and munched on plants with its small teeth. This dinosaur is named after the beautiful rainbow clouds that float over the region where its fossils were found.1 3

Lived

193 to 184 million years ago3

Early Jurassic

Fossils found in

Yimen County, Yunnan Province, China1 3

Food

Plants3

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

cool stuff

Fun facts

Irisosaurus is a sauropodiform, meaning it is an early relative of the giant long-necked sauropods like Brachiosaurus.1

The only known fossil of Irisosaurus is a partial skeleton called the holotype, found in 2018.1

Its name comes from the Latin word for rainbow, because Yunnan is known for its colorful clouds.1 2

Irisosaurus lived during the Early Jurassic Period, about 192 to 184 million years ago.3

Scientists think Irisosaurus was a close relative of Mussaurus, another early sauropodomorph.1

AI-made picture of Irisosaurus — An AI-made picture of how Irisosaurus 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: Irisosaurus
Named by: Peyre de Fabrègues et al. 20203
Group: Long-necks
Family / clade: Sauropodiformes3
Classification: Sauropodomorpha3
Age of the rocks: 193 to 184 million years (Pliensbachian)3
Rock formations: Fengjiahe3
Countries: China3
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Irisosaurus was named in 2020 by a team of scientists including Claire Peyre de Fabrègues. The fossils were found in the Fengjiahe Formation in Yimen County, China, during the summer of 2018.1 2
Still debated: Scientists are not sure exactly how large Irisosaurus grew, because only one partial skeleton has been found.1

Where the facts come from

Irisosaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
Author Correction: A new species of early-diverging Sauropodiformes from the Lower Jurassic Fengjiahe Formation of Yunnan Province, China | Scientific Reports (nature.com)
Irisosaurus 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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