In a brand-new paper released on January 31, 2024 in the journal Historic Biologypaleontologists revealed the discovery of a formerly undocumented types of dinosaur associated to the well-known Stegosaurus
Stegosaurs were a group of plant-eating armored dinosaurs that lived throughout the Jurassic and Cretaceous durations.
These dinosaurs were four-legged and reached an optimum length of about 9 m (30 feet).
They had little heads, peg-like teeth, vertical bony plates and spinal columns on their back and tail, and hoof-like toes on all 4 limbs.
“Stegosaurs are a small however renowned clade of ornithischian dinosaurs,” stated Dr. Lei Jia from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and associates.
“They vary from the Middle Jurassic to the Early Cretaceous, however are uncommon and badly represented in the Cretaceous.”
“Before our research study, there were just 4 legitimate taxa from the Cretaceous: Paranthodon Wuerhosaurus homheni, Wuerhosaurus ordosensis and Mongolostegus exspectabilis“
The fossilized bones of Yanbeilong ultimusImage credit: Jia et aldoi: 10.1080/ 08912963.2024.2308214.
The brand-new types from the Cretaceous, Yanbeilong ultimusresided in what is now China in between 113 and 100 million years earlier.
The stegosaur’s fossilized remains were gathered from the Zuoyun Formation of Zuoyun County, the Chinese province of Shanxi.
Yanbeilong ultimus represents among the current records of a stegosaurian taxon on the planet,” the paleontologists stated.
“Compared to other stegosaurs, Yanbeilong ultimus has a number of distinct attributes in dorsal vertebrae and ilio-sacral block.”
“It has a greater neural arch and smaller sized neural canal of dorsal vertebrae, and it has less variety of merged vertebrae/sacrals and fenestrae/sacral ribs in the ilio-sacral block.”
“The phylogenetic analysis reveals that Yanbeilong ultimus is recuperated as the sis taxon to a clade including Stegosaurus stenops and Wuerhosaurus homheni,” they included.
“But it varies from these 2 taxa in numerous physiological characters of dorsasacral vertebrae ribs, sacral ribs, caudal vertebrae and ilium.”
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Lei Jia et alA brand-new stegosaur from the late Early Cretaceous of Zuoyun, Shanxi Province, China. Historic Biologyreleased online January 31, 2024; doi: 10.1080/ 08912963.2024.2308214