| Tsintaosaurus Temporal range: Late Cretaceous, 70 Ma |
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| Mounted skeleton, Paleozoological Museum of China. | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Superorder: | Dinosauria |
| Order: | Ornithischia |
| Suborder: | Cerapoda |
| Family: | Hadrosauridae |
| Subfamily: | Lambeosaurinae |
| Genus: | Tsintaosaurus Young, 1958 |
| Species | |
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Tsintaosaurus ([ˌtʃɪŋdaʊˈsɔːrəs], meaning "Qingdao lizard", after the old transliteration "Tsingtao") [1] is a genus of hadrosaurid dinosaur from China. It was about 10 metres (33 ft) long, 3.6 metres (12 ft) tall and weighed 3 tons.[2] The type species is T. spinorhinus, first described by C. C. Young in 1958.
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.
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Tsintaosaurus is typically reconstructed with a unicorn-like crest on its skull. In the 1990s, some studies cast doubt on the presence of the crest, suggesting that the 'crest' was actually a broken bone from the top of the snout distorted upward by crushing. The study further suggested that, without the distinctive crest to distinguish it, Tsintaosaurus was actually a synonym of the similar but crestless hadrosaur Tanius. However, a second specimen with the same upright crest has since been discovered, showing that the crest was indeed real and Tsintaosaurus is likely a distinct genus.[3]
Tsintaosaurus may form a clade in Lambeosaurinae with the European genera Pararhabdodon and Koutalisaurus (probable synonym of Pararhabdodon).[4]
Tsintaosaurus lived in Southeast Asia, in what is now Shandong, in the southern part of China.