Qianjiangsaurus

Say it: chyen-jyang-SORE-us

Name means: “Qianjiang lizard”1

Ate: PlantsBeaked plant-eatersLate Cretaceous

Qianjiangsaurus was a duck-billed dinosaur that lived in what is now China. It had a hollow crest on its snout that might have helped it make loud honking sounds to talk to other dinosaurs.1

Lived

100 to 66 million years ago2

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Zhengyang Formation, Qianjiang District, Chongqing Municipality, southwest China1

Food

Plants2 1

Length

8 m1

estimate for the adult holotype

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

as long as 8 dogs nose to tailas long as 44 bananas end to end

How big was Qianjiangsaurus compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Qianjiangsaurus is the first dinosaur from the Zhengyang Formation to be given a scientific name.1

Its hollow snout crest is similar to those of lambeosaurine hadrosaurs, but it evolved separately. This makes it the first ornithopod outside that group to have such a crest.1

The crest may have been used to make low-frequency sounds, like a musical instrument, to communicate with other members of its herd.1

Qianjiangsaurus was about 8 metres (26 feet) long, which is as long as a school bus.1

Its fossils show that dinosaurs in southern China were related to those in Mongolia, suggesting they moved between these regions during the Late Cretaceous.1

The only other hadrosauroid named from southern China is Nanningosaurus.1

AI-made picture of Qianjiangsaurus — An AI-made picture of how Qianjiangsaurus 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 Qianjiangsaurus

?How big was Qianjiangsaurus?

About 8 metres (26 feet) long, which is about the length of a school bus.1

?What did Qianjiangsaurus eat?

It was a plant-eating dinosaur, like other duck-billed hadrosaurs.1

?When did Qianjiangsaurus live?

It lived during the Late Cretaceous period, about 84 million years ago.1

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Qianjiangsaurus
Named by: Dai et al. 20252
Group: Beaked plant-eaters
Family / clade: Hadrosauroidea2
Classification: Ornithischia > Ornithopoda > Iguanodontia2
Age of the rocks: 100 to 66 million years (Cenomanian / Maastrichtian)2
Rock formations: Zhengyang2
Countries: China2
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database2
Discovery: The first fossils of Qianjiangsaurus were found in the winter of 2022 by a team from the Chongqing Bureau of Geological and Mineral Resource Exploration and Development. It was named in 2025 by Hui Dai and colleagues, with the species name changshengi honoring Changsheng Wang, who discovered the fossil site.1
Still debated: Scientists are still debating exactly where Qianjiangsaurus sits on the dinosaur family tree. Some studies place it closer to hadrosaurs, while others see it as a more primitive relative.1

Where the facts come from

Qianjiangsaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
Qianjiangsaurus 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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