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Silutitan

Say it: SEE-loo-TIE-tan

Name means: “Silk Road giant”1

Ate: PlantsLong-necksEarly Cretaceous

Silutitan was a huge, long-necked plant-eater that lived in what is now China. Its fossils were found alongside many pterosaur bones, including eggs and babies. This dinosaur was one of the first big land animals discovered in that special fossil site.1 2

Lived

137 to 133 million years ago3

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Hami, Xinjiang, China1 3

Food

Plants3

Length

20 m1

estimated from neck bones compared to a similar dinosaur

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 cars parked in a rowas long as 110 bananas end to end

How big was Silutitan compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Silutitan is known only from six neck bones and some ribs. Scientists used those bones to figure out its body length was over 20 metres (66 feet).1

Its name means 'Silk Road giant' because the fossils were found near the ancient Silk Road trade route in China.1

Silutitan lived about 137 to 132 million years ago, during the Early Cretaceous period.3

The bones of Silutitan were found in lake-bottom sandstones, along with many pterosaur fossils including eggs and embryos.1 2

Silutitan was a somphospondylan sauropod, a group of long-necked dinosaurs with air-filled bones that made them lighter.1

Its neck vertebrae had special bumps and ridges that helped scientists tell it apart from other sauropods.1

AI-made picture of Silutitan — An AI-made picture of how Silutitan 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: Silutitan
Named by: Wang et al. 20213
Group: Long-necks
Family / clade: Euhelopodidae3
Classification: Sauropodomorpha > Sauropoda > Macronaria3
Age of the rocks: 137 to 133 million years (Valanginian)3
Rock formations: Shengjinkou3
Countries: China3
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Silutitan was named in 2021 by a team of scientists led by Xiaolin Wang. The fossils were found in the Hami region of Xinjiang, China, starting in 2016.1 3
Still debated: Scientists are not sure exactly how long Silutitan's whole body was, because only its neck bones have been found. The length estimate of over 20 metres is based on comparing it to a similar dinosaur called Euhelopus.1

Where the facts come from

nature.com (nature.com)
The first dinosaurs from the Early Cretaceous Hami Pterosaur Fauna, China (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
Silutitan 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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