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Yongjinglong

Say it: yong-JING-long

Name means: “dragon of Yongjing (the county in Gansu, China)”1

Ate: PlantsLong-necksEarly Cretaceous

Yongjinglong was a big, long-necked plant-eater that lived in what is now China. It had a very long shoulder blade that stretched more than half the length of its body. Scientists think it was still growing when it died.1

Lived

126 to 113 million years ago4

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Gansu Province, China, near the town of Zhongpu1

Food

Plants2 1

Length

up to 12 m3

estimate

Weight

up to 7.5 tonnes3

estimate

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 5 cars

as long as 2.5 cars parked in a rowas long as 67 bananas end to endabout as heavy as an elephantas heavy as 1500 watermelons

How big was Yongjinglong compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Yongjinglong's shoulder blade was extremely long and straight, stretching over half the length of its trunk.1

Its neck and back bones had deep, air-filled holes called pleurocoels that covered the whole side of each bone, making the skeleton lighter.1

The ridges on the sides of its middle back bones formed a pattern that looks like the Roman numeral XI.1

Yongjinglong lived about 125 to 113 million years ago, during the Early Cretaceous period.2

The only known fossil is a subadult, meaning Yongjinglong was not fully grown when it died.1

Its teeth were long and spoon-shaped, perfect for scooping up plants.1

AI-made picture of Yongjinglong — An AI-made picture of how Yongjinglong 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: Yongjinglong
Named by: Li et al. 20144
Group: Long-necks
Family / clade: Euhelopodidae4
Classification: Sauropodomorpha > Sauropoda > Macronaria4
Age of the rocks: 126 to 113 million years (Barremian / Aptian)4
Rock formations: 54
Countries: China4
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: Yongjinglong was discovered in 2008 by Li Daqing and You Hailu beside the G75 Highway in Gansu, China. It was named and described by Li and colleagues in 2014.1 2
Still debated: Scientists are not sure exactly how big Yongjinglong grew, because the only known fossil is from a young animal.1

Where the facts come from

A New Titanosaurian Sauropod from the Hekou Group (Lower Cretaceous) of the Lanzhou-Minhe Basin, Gansu Province, China | PLOS One (journals.plos.org)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Yongjinglong datangi | Dinosaur Database by DinoAnimals.com (dinoanimals.com)
Yongjinglong 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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