Chungkingosaurus
chung-KING-uh-SAWR-us
Chungkingosaurus is an herbivorous dinosaur from the stegosauria suborder and gets its name from the location of its discovery, Chongqing in Sichuan, China. At around 3m in length, Chungkingosaurus is one of the smaller Stegosauria, with distinctive spikes adorning its neck, back and tail that help it to protect itself from predators.
Discovery
The first Chungkingosaurus was discovered in 1977, when a group of Chinese paleontologists excavated numerous bones including part of a skeleton, back plates and tail vertebrae. In 1983, Dong Zhiming – one of the group that unearthed the first Chungkingosaurus artefact – officially classified it as a member of the Stegosaurinae family.
Palaeoecology
Chungkingosaurus lived during the Late Jurassic period, approximately 150m years ago, across much of Asia – in particular the Chongqing and Guizhou region of China. It roamed forest areas with many larger Sauropods including Mamenchisaurus, while steering clear of predators such as Szechuanosaurus.
Information
- Era
- Late Jurassic
- Family
- Huayangosauridae
- Genus
- Chungkingosaurus
- height
- 1M
- length
- 3.2M
- weight
- 1.5T
- Diet
- Ground Paleobotany
- Egg batch size
- 1 - 3
