Dino card No. 1517 of 2,027

Qijianglong

Say it: chee-jyang-LONG

Name means: “dragon from Qijiang”1

Ate: PlantsLong-necksLate Jurassic to Early Cretaceous

Qijianglong was a giant plant-eating dinosaur with an incredibly long neck. It lived in what is now China during the Late Jurassic period, about 150 million years ago. This gentle giant used its long neck to reach high leaves that other dinosaurs couldn't eat.1 2

Lived

162 to 143 million years ago4

Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Qijiang District, Chongqing Municipality, China2 1

Food

Plants3 1

Length

15 m1

estimate for the holotype, which may be a juvenile

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

as long as 3 cars parked in a rowas long as 83 bananas end to end

How big was Qijianglong compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Qijianglong had a very long neck made of 17 vertebrae, which helped it reach food high up.1

Its neck vertebrae had special finger-like extensions that stiffened the neck horizontally but allowed it to move up and down.2

The first bone was found in the early 1990s by a farmer named Cai Changming in his backyard in Sichuan, China.1

Qijianglong is the first mamenchisaurid dinosaur from the Late Jurassic of China that is clearly different from Mamenchisaurus.2

The species name 'guokr' means 'nutshell' in Chinese and honors a science social network that supported paleontology.1

Scientists think Qijianglong was a juvenile when it died, even though it was already about 15 meters (49 feet) long.1

AI-made picture of Qijianglong — An AI-made picture of how Qijianglong 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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Myth buster

Myth: Some people think all long-necked dinosaurs are the same, like Brontosaurus.

Truth: Qijianglong is a different kind of sauropod called a mamenchisaurid, with unique neck bones and a skull that set it apart from other long-necked dinosaurs.2

For dino experts

Scientific name: Qijianglong
Named by: Xing et al. 20154
Group: Long-necks
Family / clade: Mamenchisauridae4
Classification: Sauropodomorpha > Sauropoda4
Age of the rocks: 162 to 143 million years (Oxfordian / Tithonian)4
Rock formations: Suining4
Countries: China4
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: The first vertebra was found in the early 1990s by farmer Cai Changming in his backyard. A construction site in Qijiang District uncovered more fossils in 2006, leading to the full skeleton. In 2015, scientists led by Xing Lida named the dinosaur Qijianglong guokr.1
Still debated: Scientists debate whether the Suining Formation where Qijianglong was found is from the Late Jurassic or Early Cretaceous, so the exact age is uncertain.1

Where the facts come from

Qijianglong (en.wikipedia.org)
ARTICLE (xinglida.net)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Qijianglong 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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