Yandusaurus
Yandusaurus was a small, fast plant-eater that ran on two legs. It lived in China during the Middle Jurassic, about 168 to 162 million years ago. With big eyes and a beak, it was a speedy little dinosaur that could dodge bigger predators.21
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Fun facts
Yandusaurus had large eyes, as shown by the curved jugal bone in its skull.2
Its teeth had a unique pattern of parallel vertical ridges, which Chinese researchers compared to the fingers of Buddha statues.2
The first Yandusaurus fossil was accidentally dug up by a composter machine near the Honghe dam in 1973.2
Yandusaurus had four toes on each foot and five fingers on each hand.2
The name Yandusaurus comes from Yandu, the ancient name for Zigong, which means 'salt capital' because the city was a center of salt mining.2
Most asked questions about Yandusaurus
?How big was Yandusaurus?
About 3 to 3.8 metres long and weighed around 140 kilograms.2
?What did Yandusaurus eat?
It was a plant-eater, or herbivore, with teeth that had a unique pattern of parallel ridges for chewing plants.21
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For dino experts
- Scientific name
- Yandusaurus
- Named by
- He 19794
- Group
- Beaked plant-eaters
- Family / clade
- Neornithischia4
- Classification
- Ornithischia4
- Age of the rocks
- 171 to 168 million years (Bajocian)4
- Rock formations
- Shaximiao4
- Countries
- China4
- Fossil records
- 2 in the Paleobiology Database4
- Discovery
- Yandusaurus was named in 1979 by Chinese paleontologist He Xinlu. The first fossils were found in 1973 by workers using a composter machine near the Honghe dam in Sichuan, China.2
- Still debated
- Scientists are not sure exactly where Yandusaurus fits in the dinosaur family tree. It is currently placed in Neornithischia, but its exact relationships are still debated.23
Where the facts come from
- Yandusaurus (nhm.ac.uk)
- Yandusaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
- PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
- Yandusaurus in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.
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