Tsintaosaurus

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Tsintaosaurus
Fossil range: Late Cretaceous

Tsintaosaurus

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Sauropsida
Superorder:	Dinosauria
Order:	Ornithischia
Suborder:	Ornithopoda
Infraorder:	Iguanodontia
Superfamily:	Hadrosauroidea
Family:	Hadrosauridae
Subfamily:	Lambeosaurinae
Genus:	Tsintaosaurus Young, 1958

Species

T. spinorhinus Young, 1958 (type)

Tsintaosaurus is a genus of hadrosaurid dinosaur from China. It was about 10 meters (33 ft) long, 3.6 m (12 ft) tall and weighed 3 tons.^[1] The type species is T. spinorhinus, first described by C. C. Young in 1958.

Tsintaosaurus spinorhinus, on display at the Beijing Museum of Natural History.

Tsintaosaurus.

A hadrosaur, Tsintaosaurus had a characteristic 'duck bill' snout and a battery of powerful teeth which it used to chew vegetation. It usually walked on all fours, but could rear up on its hind legs to scout for predators and flee when it spotted one. Like other hadrosaurs, Tsintaosaurus probably lived in herds.

Tsintaosaurus was initially reconstructed with a unicorn-like crest on its snout. Although the 'crest' was later identified as a broken skull bone—indicating the specimen was actually Tanius—a second specimen with the horn has since been discovered.^[2]

[edit] References

^ Weird Dinosaurs
^ Buffetaut, E. and Tong, H. (1993). "Tsintaosaurus spinorhinus Young and Tanius sinensis Wiman: a preliminary comparative study of two hadrosaurs (Dinosauria) from the Upper Cretaceous of China." C.R. Academy of Science Paris, series 2. 317:1255-1261.