''Jiangshanosaurus'' is a genus of herbivorous
titanosauriform sauropod
Sauropoda (), whose members are known as sauropods (; from '' sauro-'' + '' -pod'', 'lizard-footed'), is a clade of saurischian ('lizard-hipped') dinosaurs. Sauropods had very long necks, long tails, small heads (relative to the rest of their ...
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 ...
that lived in China approximately 92-88
million years ago
The abbreviation Myr, "million years", is a unit of a quantity of (i.e. ) years, or 31.556926 teraseconds.
Usage
Myr (million years) is in common use in fields such as Earth science and cosmology. Myr is also used with Mya (million years ago). ...
, during the
Turonian
The Turonian is, in the ICS' geologic timescale, the second age in the Late Cretaceous Epoch, or a stage in the Upper Cretaceous Series. It spans the time between 93.9 ± 0.8 Ma and 89.8 ± 1 Ma (million years ago). The Turonian is preceded ...
-
Coniacian
The Coniacian is an age or stage in the geologic timescale. It is a subdivision of the Late Cretaceous Epoch or Upper Cretaceous Series and spans the time between 89.8 ± 1 Ma and 86.3 ± 0.7 Ma (million years ago). The Coniacian is preceded b ...
stage of 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'', ...
.
Discovery and naming

In 1977 and 1978 a sauropod skeleton was excavated by paleontologists Wei Feng, Wu Weitang and Kang Ximin in the
Jinhua Formation
The Jinhua Formation () is a geological formation in Zhejiang, China, whose strata date back to the Late Cretaceous period (Turonian to Coniacian). It was initially believed to be Early Cretaceous ( late Albian) in age.Feng Tang, Xi-Min Kang, Xing- ...
of Lixian Village,
Jiangshan county, in the eastern
Chinese province of
Zhejiang
Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by ...
.
The
type
Type may refer to:
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* TYPE (DOS command), a command to display contents of a file.
* Ty ...
and only named species, ''Jiangshanosaurus lixianensis'', was formally described by Tang Feng, Kang, Jin Xingsheng, Wei and Wu in 2001. The
holotype
A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of seve ...
, ZNM M1322, of ''J.lixianensis'' includes elements of the left shoulder, five back vertebrae, three tail vertebrae, the
pubic bones, the ischia, and a left femur.
[Feng Tang, Xi-Min Kang, Xing-Sheng Jin, Feng Wei, Wei-Tang Wu (2001]
"A New Sauropod Dinosaur of Cretaceous From Jiangshan, Zhejiang Province"
in: ''Vertebrata PalAsiatica.'' Bd. 39, Nr. 4, pp. 272–281. The genus name refers to Jiangshan County; the specific name refers to the village of Lixian.
In 2019, Philip Mannion e.a. redescribed the holotype.
[Philip D. Mannion; Paul Upchurch; Xingsheng Jin; Wenjie Zheng. 2019. "New information on the Cretaceous sauropod dinosaurs of Zhejiang Province, China: impact on Laurasian titanosauriform phylogeny and biogeography". ''Royal Society Open Science''. 6(8): Article ID 191057]
Description
Size
According to paleontologist
Thomas R. Holtz Jr.
Thomas Richard Holtz Jr. (born September 13, 1965) is an American vertebrate palaeontologist, author, and principal lecturer at the University of Maryland's Department of Geology. He has published extensively on the phylogeny, morphology, ecomorp ...
the exact size of this sauropod cannot be determined.
Gregory S. Paul estimated its length at eleven meters and its weight at 2500 kg.
Distinguishing traits
In 2019, Mannion e.a. indicated two distinguishing traits. They were
autapomorphies
In phylogenetics, an autapomorphy is a distinctive feature, known as a derived trait, that is unique to a given taxon. That is, it is found only in one taxon, but not found in any others or outgroup taxa, not even those most closely related to t ...
, unique derived characters. In the vertebrae positioned at the transition between the tail base and the middle tail, the lower ends of the ''laminae spinoprezygapophyseales'', the ridges running from the
neural spine
The spinal column, a defining synapomorphy shared by nearly all vertebrates,Hagfish are believed to have secondarily lost their spinal column is a moderately flexible series of vertebrae (singular vertebra), each constituting a characteristic ...
towards the front articulation processes, are placed to the inside of these processes, the
prezygapophyses, instead of touching them. The lower shaft of the ischium ends in a small process, formed as a hook, on its top outer side.
Phylogeny
Although ''Jiangshanosaurus'' initially defied precise placement within
Titanosauria, in 2017 paper considered it to be outside
Lithostrotia.
According to the 2019 study, ''Jiangshanosaurus'' was placed in the
Somphospondyli in a basal position, outside the Titanosauria.
References
Fossil taxa described in 2001
Paleontology in Zhejiang
{{Sauropodomorph-stub
Late Cretaceous dinosaurs of Asia