''Ganzhousaurus'' (meaning "Ganzhou lizard") is an extinct

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial n ...

oviraptorid Oviraptoridae is a group of bird-like, herbivorous and omnivorous maniraptoran dinosaurs. Oviraptorids are characterized by their toothless, parrot-like beaks and, in some cases, elaborate crests. They were generally small, measuring between on ...

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...

known from the

Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''creta'', ...

Nanxiong Formation of

Nankang County Nankang () is a district of the city of Ganzhou in southern Jiangxi province. It was a county-level city until November 2013, when the State Council State Council may refer to: Government * State Council of the Republic of Korea, the national ...

Ganzhou Ganzhou (), alternately romanized as Kanchow, is a prefecture-level city in the south of Jiangxi province, China, bordering Fujian to the east, Guangdong to the south, and Hunan to the west. Its administrative seat is at Zhanggong District. Hist ...

City of

Jiangxi Province Jiangxi (; ; formerly romanized as Kiangsi or Chianghsi) is a landlocked province in the east of the People's Republic of China. Its major cities include Nanchang and Jiujiang. Spanning from the banks of the Yangtze river in the north into hi ...

, southern China. It was found in a

Maastrichtian The Maastrichtian () is, in the ICS geologic timescale, the latest age (uppermost stage) of the Late Cretaceous Epoch or Upper Cretaceous Series, the Cretaceous Period or System, and of the Mesozoic Era or Erathem. It spanned the interv ...

deposit and contains a single

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of ...

, ''Ganzhousaurus nankangensis''. It is distinguished by a combination of primitive and derived features.

Phylogeny

Phylogenetic analysis places ''Ganzhousaurus'' within

Oviraptoridae Oviraptoridae is a group of bird-like, herbivorous and omnivorous maniraptoran dinosaurs. Oviraptorids are characterized by their toothless, parrot-like beaks and, in some cases, elaborate crests. They were generally small, measuring between on ...

. Within Oviraptoridae its phylogenetic position is more unstable, with one phylogenetic analysis recovering it as a member of the Oviraptorinae and another recovering it as a more derived member of the group, closely related to "ingeniines" However, it also bears some similarities to the basal caenagnathid ''

Gigantoraptor ''Gigantoraptor'' () is a genus of large oviraptorosaur dinosaur that lived in Asia during the Late Cretaceous period. It is known from the Iren Dabasu Formation of Inner Mongolia, where the first remains were found in 2005. ''Gigantoraptor'' ...

''.

Paleobiology

''Ganzhousaurus'' shared its habitat with at least four other oviraptorid species, '' Jiangxisaurus ganzhouensis, Nankangia jinzhouensis,

Banji long ''Banji'' is an extinct genus of oviraptorid dinosaur that lived approximately 66 million years ago during the later part of the Cretaceous Period in what is now China. It was a small, lightly-built, ground-dwelling, bipedal carnivore, th ...

,'' and an as-yet unnamed species. This diversity may have been made possible by niche partitioning, with ''Ganzhousaurus'' being primarily herbivorous.

References

Late Cretaceous dinosaurs of Asia Oviraptorids Fossil taxa described in 2013 Paleontology in Jiangxi {{Theropod-stub

Phylogeny

Paleobiology

See also

References