Napaisaurus

Say it: nah-PAY-SORE-us

Name means: “Napai lizard, named after the Napai Basin where it was found”1

Ate: PlantsBeaked plant-eatersEarly Cretaceous

Napaisaurus was a plant-eating dinosaur that walked on two legs. It lived in what is now southern China during the Early Cretaceous period, about 120 million years ago. It was one of the first of its kind found in that part of the world.1 2

Lived

121 to 113 million years ago4

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Napaisaurus fossils were found in the Napai Basin, Guangxi, southern China.1 2

Food

Plants4

Length

4 m3

estimate based on partial hip bones

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

as long as 4 dogs nose to tailas long as 22 bananas end to end

How big was Napaisaurus compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Napaisaurus is the first named basal iguanodontian dinosaur from southern China.1 2

Its fossils are only a right ilium and a right ischium, which are hip bones.1 4

The bones were discovered in 2020, and scientists named the dinosaur in 2022.1 2

Napaisaurus lived alongside sauropods, theropods, and possible psittacosaurids in the same area.2

Scientists think Napaisaurus can help show how dinosaurs in southern China were related to those in Thailand and northern China.1 2

AI-made picture of Napaisaurus — An AI-made picture of how Napaisaurus 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: Napaisaurus
Named by: Ji and Zhang 20224
Group: Beaked plant-eaters
Family / clade: Styracosterna4
Classification: Ornithischia > Ornithopoda > Iguanodontia4
Age of the rocks: 121 to 113 million years (Aptian)4
Rock formations: Xinlong4
Countries: China4
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: In 2020, a right ilium and ischium were found in the Napai Basin. Scientists Ji and Zhang named the dinosaur Napaisaurus guangxiensis in 2022.1 4
Still debated: Scientists are still debating whether Napaisaurus is really a separate species or might be the same as another dinosaur called Sirindhorna, because only a few bones are known.1

Where the facts come from

Napaisaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
中国南方首次发现的基干禽龙类化石新属种 (cgsjournals.com)
A Basal Iguanodontian from Southern China (blog.everythingdinosaur.com)
Napaisaurus 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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