{"id":193644,"date":"2025-09-02T08:26:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T08:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/193644\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T08:26:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T08:26:10","slug":"new-plant-eating-dinosaur-species-unveiled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/193644\/","title":{"rendered":"New Plant-Eating Dinosaur Species Unveiled"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paleontologists have announced the discovery of a new genus and species of early eusauropod dinosaur from the Jurassic period of China.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Mamenchisaurus<\/p>\n

Mamenchisaurus youngi, a sister species of Huashanosaurus qini. Image credit: Steveoc 86 \/ CC BY-SA 2.5.<\/p>\n

Named Huashanosaurus qini, the new dinosaur species is estimated to have been around 12 m (39 feet) long.<\/p>\n

It lived in what is now China\u2019s Guangxi autonomous region from the Early to Middle Jurassic, 200 to 162 million years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cJurassic sauropods are well represented in China, especially in Yunnan, Sichuan, Chongqing and Xinjiang, with only a few localities known in Gansu, Ningxia, Anhui, Tibet and Guizhou,\u201d said lead author Dr. Jinyou Mo from the Natural History Museum of Guangxi and colleagues.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Guangxi, the Jurassic record of dinosaur fossils is poor, compared with the Cretaceous dinosaur fossil record.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two specimens of Huashanosaurus qini \u2014 including a partial skeleton \u2014 were collected at Huqiu Quarry of the Wangmen Formation<\/a> near Dongshi village in Guangxi, southern China.<\/p>\n

Some bony fish scales and teeth (possibly Lepidotes sp.), several incomplete plesiosaurian teeth, and several fragmentary dinosaur bones were found at the site.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe geological age of the Wangmen Formation is under debate,\u201d the paleontologists said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was originally regarded as early Early Jurassic, but paleontological evidence was lacking.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cScientists regarded it as the Early to Middle Jurassic based on the discovery of charophytes from this formation.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the team, Huashanosaurus qini is a basal member of the Eusauropoda<\/a>, a derived group of sauropod dinosaurs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the second eusauropod from Guangxi,\u201d the researchers said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first described eusauropod, Jingia dongxingensis, was excavated from the Late Jurassic Dongxing Formation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The discovery of Huashanosaurus qini provides additional information about the evolutionary radiation of eusauropod dinosaurs.<\/p>\n

\u201cHuashanosaurus qini is later-diverging than the Early Jurassic Vulcanodon, Tazoudasaurus, and Gongxianosaurus, as well as the Early to early Middle Jurassic Barapasaurus,\u201d the scientists said.<\/p>\n

\u201cGenerally, it is recognized that the major radiation of eusauropods occurred during the end of the Early Jurassic and Middle Jurassic interval.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom this point of view, the discovery of the eusauropod Huashanosaurus qini provides additional evidence for an Early to Middle Jurassic age for the Wangmen Formation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The findings<\/a> were published in the journal Acta Geologica Sinica.<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

Jinyou Mo et al. 2025. A New Eusauropod Dinosaur from the Lower and Middle Jurassic Wangmen Formation of Ningming County, Guangxi, South China. Acta Geologica Sinica 99 (4): 909-924; doi: 10.1111\/1755-6724.15331<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paleontologists have announced the discovery of a new genus and species of early eusauropod dinosaur from the Jurassic…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":193645,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[74,43603,43605,43606,108020,108021,108022,25053,159,67,132,68,108023],"class_list":{"0":"post-193644","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-china","9":"tag-dinosaur","10":"tag-eusauropoda","11":"tag-fossil","12":"tag-guangxi","13":"tag-huashanosaurus","14":"tag-huashanosaurus-qini","15":"tag-jurassic","16":"tag-science","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-wangmen-formation"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115133755164795193","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}