Dino card No. 0923 of 2,027

Jinyunpelta

Say it: JIN-yoon-PEL-ta

Name means: “Jinyun shield”1

Ate: PlantsArmoured dinosEarly Cretaceous

Jinyunpelta was an armoured dinosaur that lived about 100 million years ago in what is now China. It had a heavy tail club that it could swing to defend itself from predators.2

Lived

113 to 100 million years ago3

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Jinyun County, Zhejiang Province, China2

Food

Plants3

Length

4 to 5 m2

estimated

Weight

1 tonnes to 2 tonnes2

Height

1.5 to 2 m2

at the hips

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

How tall was it?

at the hips

How heavy was it?

as heavy as 1.5 cars

as long as 5 dogs nose to tailas long as 28 bananas end to endas heavy as 67 big dogsas heavy as 400 watermelonsabout as tall as a door

How big was Jinyunpelta compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Jinyunpelta is the oldest known ankylosaur to have a well-developed tail club knob.2

Its tail club was made of interlocking vertebrae and a large bony knob at the end.2

Jinyunpelta had two extra openings in its skull behind the nostril, which is unique among ankylosaurs.2

This dinosaur was about 4 to 5 metres long and weighed as much as a small car.2

Jinyunpelta lived during the mid-Cretaceous period, around 100 million years ago.3

It is the first definite ankylosaurid dinosaur found in southern China.2

AI-made picture of Jinyunpelta — An AI-made picture of how Jinyunpelta 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.

you asked

Most asked questions about Jinyunpelta

?What did Jinyunpelta eat?

It was an herbivore, meaning it ate plants.1

?Did Jinyunpelta have a tail club?

Yes, it had a well-developed tail club made of interlocking vertebrae and a large bony knob at the end, which it could swing to defend itself.1 2

?When did Jinyunpelta live?

It lived about 100 million years ago during the mid-Cretaceous period.1

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Myth buster

Myth: All armoured dinosaurs had tail clubs.

Truth: Only a subgroup called ankylosaurines had true tail clubs, and Jinyunpelta is the oldest known member of that group.2

For dino experts

Scientific name: Jinyunpelta
Named by: Zheng et al. 20183
Group: Armoured dinos
Family / clade: Ankylosauridae3
Classification: Ornithischia > Ankylosauria > Ankylosauridae > Thyreophora3
Age of the rocks: 113 to 100 million years (Albian)3
Rock formations: Liangtoutang3
Countries: China3
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Jinyunpelta was named in 2018 by Zheng Wenjie and colleagues based on two skeletons found in Jinyun County, China.1
Still debated: Scientists are still debating exactly how Jinyunpelta used its tail club, whether for defence against predators or for fighting rivals.2

Where the facts come from

Jinyunpelta (en.wikipedia.org)
The most basal ankylosaurine dinosaur from the Albian, Cenomanian of China, with implications for the evolution of the tail club | Scientific Reports (nature.com)
Jinyunpelta in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

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