Sinankylosaurus

Sinankylosaurus Temporal range: Late Cretaceous (Campanian), ~77.3–73.5  Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Clade:	Dinosauria
Clade:	incertae sedis
Genus:	† Sinankylosaurus Wang et al., 2020
Species:	†S. zhuchengensis
Binomial name
†Sinankylosaurus zhuchengensis Wang et al., 2020

Sinankylosaurus (meaning "Chinese fused lizard") is a dubious genus of dinosaurs, originally described as an ankylosaur, from the Late Cretaceous Hongtuya Formation of Shandong, China. The genus contains a single species, Sinankylosaurus zhuchengensis, known from a nearly complete right ilium.

Discovery and naming

The holotype specimen, ZJZ-183, was discovered in the Hongtuya Formation (Wangshi Group) in Zhucheng, Shandong Province, China. The fossil, a partial right ilium, was described in 2020 as belonging to an ankylosaur of uncertain affinities. ^[1]

In a 2021 publication, Zheng et al. deemed Sinankylosaurus a nomen dubium with no anatomical characters uniting it with the Ankylosauria. ^[2]

Paleoecology

Sinankylosaurus is known from the Hongtuya Formation, part of the Wangshi Group of southern China. Other dinosaurs from this group include ceratopsians ( Ischioceratops , Sinoceratops , and Zhuchengceratops ), the large hadrosaurid Shantungosaurus , the titanosaur Zhuchengtitan , the tyrannosaurid Zhuchengtyrannus , and the oviraptorosaur Anomalipes . ^[1]

References

1. Wang, K. B.; Zhang, Y. X.; Chen, J.; Chen, S. Q.; Wang, P. Y. (2020). "A new ankylosaurian from the Late Cretaceous strata of Zhucheng, Shandong Province". Geological Bulletin of China (in Chinese). 39 (7): 958–962.
2. Zheng, Wenjie; Shibata, Masateru; Liao, Chun-Chi; Hattori, Soki; Jin, Dongchun; Jin, Changzhu; Xu, Xing (2021). "First definitive ankylosaurian dinosaur from the Cretaceous of Jilin Province, northeastern China" . Cretaceous Research. 127: 104953. Bibcode:2021CrRes.12704953Z. doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2021.104953.