A sauropod dinosaur chased by two carnivorous dinosaurs. Image credit: Lida Xing.
SciNews has a story about the discovery of a new species of eusauropod. Jinchuanloong niedu lived during the Middle Jurassic Period some 165 million years ago. The fossil bones were found near Jinchang city, Gansu province, northwestern China. The specimen includes of a nearly complete skull with mandible, five cervical vertebrae and 29 caudal vertebae. Sauropod skulls are very rare due to their fragility. Find more details in the paper published in the journal Scientific Reports.
“Sauropod dinosaurs were gigantic quadrupedal herbivores, ranging from the Early Jurassic to Late Cretaceous, and have been found on all continents,” Dr. Ning Li from the China University of Geosciences and colleagues wrote in their paper.
“Due to the global warming event in the late Early Jurassic, eusauropods were the only surviving sauropod lineage subsequently.”
“In the Middle and Late Jurassic, the non-neosauropod eusauropod became dominant, represented by Shunosaurus, Omeisaurus, and ‘core Mamenchisaurus-like taxa’.”
