Chialingosaurus
Name:
Chialingosaurus
(Chialing lizard after the Chialing River).
Phonetic: Chee-a-ling-o-sore-us.
Named By: C. C. Young - 1959.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia, Dinosauria,
Ornithischia, Thyreophora, Stegosauria, Stegosauridae.
Species: C. kuani (type).
Diet: Herbivore.
Size: Up to 4 meters long.
Known locations: China - Sichuan Province -
Dashanpu/Upper Shaximiao Formation.
Time period: Oxfordian of the Jurassic.
Fossil representation: Partial skeleton.
So
far only known from a partial skeleton, Chialingosaurus
was still one
of the first and hence most important stegosaur
discoveries to take
place in Asia. At up to four meters long it seems to have been small
but comparable in size to Chungkingosaurus
that is also known from the
Shaximiao Formation. However there is enough difference between the
fossils of both genera to discount the idea that they may be
synonymous, specifically when dealing with the shape and form of
plates and bones. Another stegosaur that lived at the same time and
location as Chialingosaurus is the much larger Tuojiangosaurus.
Chialingosaurus
had an arrangement of spikes that ran down its tail that would have
been used both as display so that it could identify others of its own
genus from the similarly sized Chungkingosaurus as
well as defence from
predatory dinosaurs such as Sinraptor,
Yangchuanosaurus
and
Leshansaurus.
However given its small size it is uncertain how
effective this defence would have been against such large predators,
and perhaps it may have been intended for defence against smaller
predatory dinosaurs.
Chialingosaurus
shared its ecosystem with other ornithischian dinosaurs like
Agilisaurus
as well as the much larger sauropod
dinosaurs like
and Mamenchisaurus.
Further reading
- On a new Stegosauria from Szechuan, China. - Vertebrata PalAsiatica
3(1): 1-8. - C.-C. Young - 1959.
- A review of the Late Jurassic stegosaurs (Dinosauria, Stegosauria)
from the People's Republic of China. - Geological Magazine 143 (5):
621–634. - Susannah C.R. Maidment & Guangbiao Wei - 2006.
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