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Shidaisaurus

Say it: SHY-dye-SORE-us

Name means: “Golden Age lizard”1

Ate: MeatMeat-eating dinosMiddle Jurassic

Shidaisaurus was a medium-sized meat-eating dinosaur that lived in what is now China. It was a fast and fierce predator, with sharp teeth and strong legs for chasing its prey.1

Lived

171 to 168 million years ago4

Middle Jurassic

Fossils found in

Yunnan, China1 3

Food

Meat2

Length

6 to 7.1 m1

estimates vary

Weight

700 kg to 950 kg1

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

How heavy was it?

as heavy as 32 big dogs

as long as 7 dogs nose to tailas long as 39 bananas end to endas heavy as 190 watermelons

How big was Shidaisaurus compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Shidaisaurus was one of the first large meat-eating dinosaurs from the Middle Jurassic of China.3

Its name comes from the Jin-Shidai Company, which helped dig up the dinosaur.1

Shidaisaurus had a special bone in its neck called the axis, with a tall, sharp point that helped it move its head.1

Unlike many other theropods, Shidaisaurus did not have air pockets (pleurocoels) in its neck and back vertebrae.1

Scientists think Shidaisaurus was a close relative of Sinraptor, another meat-eating dinosaur from China.1

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

?How big was Shidaisaurus?

About 6 to 7.1 metres (20 to 23 feet) long. It weighed around 700 to 950 kilograms (1543 to 2094 pounds).1

?What did Shidaisaurus eat?

It was a meat-eater (carnivore). It used its sharp teeth and strong legs to hunt and eat other animals.4

?When did Shidaisaurus live?

It lived during the early Middle Jurassic period, about 174 million years ago.1 4

?Where was Shidaisaurus found?

Its fossils were found in Yunnan, China, in rocks of the Chuanjie Formation.1

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Shidaisaurus
Named by: Wu et al. 20094
Group: Meat-eating dinos
Family / clade: Metriacanthosauridae4
Classification: Theropoda > Allosauroidea4
Age of the rocks: 171 to 168 million years (Bajocian)4
Rock formations: Chuanjie4
Countries: China4
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: Shidaisaurus was named by Wu and colleagues in 2009, based on a partial skeleton found in the Chuanjie Formation in Yunnan, China.1 3
Still debated: Scientists are still debating exactly how Shidaisaurus is related to other Jurassic theropods from China.3

Where the facts come from

Shidaisaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
A New Theropod Dinosaur from the Middle Jurassic of Lufeng, Yunnan, China (onlinelibrary.wiley.com)
Shidaisaurus 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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