Tatisaurus

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Tatisaurus
Temporal range: Early Jurassic, Sinemurian
Tatisaurus oehleri.jpg
Jaw
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Dinosauria
Clade: Ornithischia
Clade: Thyreophora
Genus: Tatisaurus
Simmons, 1965
Species:
T. oehleri
Binomial name
Tatisaurus oehleri
Simmons, 1965
Synonyms

Tatisaurus is a genus of ornithischian dinosaur from the Early Jurassic from the Lower Lufeng Formation in Yunnan Province in China. Little is known as the remains are fragmentary. [1] The type species is T. oehleri.

Discovery and species

In 1948 and 1949 Father Edgar Oehler, a Catholic priest working for the Fu Jen Catholic University at Beijing, excavated fossils near the village of Da Di in Yunnan. Among them was the jaw bone of a herbivorous dinosaur. In 1965 David Jay Simmons named and described it as the type species Tatisaurus oehleri. The generic name is derived from Da Di, then more usually spelled as "Ta Ti". The specific name honours Oehler. [2] The holotype, FMNH CUP 2088, was found in the Zhangjiawa Beds of the Lufeng Formation, dating from the Sinemurian. It consists of a partial left mandible with teeth. The lower jaw bone fragment is, lacking the tip, six centimetres long. The teeth are eroded. It is the only specimen known of the species.

Simmons assigned Tatisaurus to the Hypsilophodontidae, though this group was seen by him as an evolutionary grade of "primitive" Ornithopoda, ancestral to several ornithischian groups. He felt that Tatisaurus' affinities were with Scelidosaurus or the Ankylosauria. Later, in 1990, the specimen was reviewed by Dong Zhiming, who noted it had similarities with Huayangosaurus . He placed the two genera in the same subfamily, the Huayangosaurinae, within the Stegosauria. [3]

Later still, in 1996, Spencer Lucas reclassified Tatisaurus oehleri as a species of Scelidosaurus, S. oehleri, in order to use Scelidosaurus for a biochron. [4] In 2007, David B. Norman and colleagues regarded this as unfounded. They instead found Tatisaurus to be a dubious basal thyreophoran, showing a single thyreophorean synapomorphy; a ventrally deflected mesial end of the dentary. If considered a thyreophoran, it would be one of the oldest known members of the group. [5]

In 2019 a study concluded that Bienosaurus was a nomen dubium , possibly identical to Tatisaurus from the same formation. [6]

Related Research Articles

<i>Scelidosaurus</i> Genus of reptiles (fossil)

Scelidosaurus is a genus of herbivorous armoured ornithischian dinosaur from the Jurassic of the British Isles.

Xiaosaurus, is a genus of small herbivorous dinosaur from the middle Jurassic, approximately 169 to 163.5 mya. Xiaosaurus lived in what is now the Sichuan Basin of China.

<i>Lufengosaurus</i> Sauropodomorph massospondylid dinosaur genus from Early Jurassic period

Lufengosaurus is a genus of massospondylid dinosaur which lived during the Early Jurassic period in what is now southwestern China.

<i>Yunnanosaurus</i> Extinct genus of dinosaurs

Yunnanosaurus is an extinct genus of sauropodomorph dinosaur that lived approximately 199 to 183 million years ago in what is now the Yunnan Province, in China, for which it was named. Yunnanosaurus was a large sized, moderately-built, ground-dwelling, quadrupedal herbivore, that could also walk bipedally, and ranged in size from 7 meters (23 feet) long and 2 m (6.5 ft) high to 4 m (13 ft) high in the largest species.

<i>Sinosaurus</i> Genus of dinosaurs

Sinosaurus is an extinct genus of theropod dinosaur which lived during the Early Jurassic Period. It was a bipedal carnivore approximately 5.5 metres (18 ft) in length and 300 kilograms (660 lb) in body mass. Fossils of the animal were found at the Lufeng Formation, in the Yunnan Province of China.

<i>Bienosaurus</i> Extinct genus of dinosaurs

Bienosaurus is a dubious genus of thyreophoran dinosaur from the Lower Jurassic Lower Lufeng Formation in Yunnan Province in China.

<i>Gyposaurus</i> Extinct genus of reptiles

Gyposaurus is a genus of basal sauropodomorph dinosaur from the early Jurassic of South Africa. It is usually considered to represent juveniles of other prosauropods, but "G." sinensis is regarded as a possibly valid species.

<i>Szechuanosaurus</i> Extinct genus of dinosaurs

Szechuanosaurus is an extinct genus of carnivorous theropod dinosaur from the Late Jurassic. Fossils referred to the genus have been found in China, Asia in the Oxfordian-?Tithonian. Its type species is based on several undiagnostic teeth from the Kuangyuan Series. Additional possible specimens of Szechuanosaurus were also reported from the Kalaza Formation, also located in China.

Eshanosaurus is a genus of a dinosaur from the early Jurassic Period. It is known only from a fossil partial lower jawbone, found in China. It may be a therizinosaurian, and if so the earliest known coelurosaur.

Gongbusaurus is a genus of ornithischian, perhaps ornithopod, dinosaur that lived between about 160 and 157 million years ago, in the Late Jurassic period. A small herbivore, it is very poorly known. Two species have been assigned to it, but as the original name is based on teeth, there is no concrete evidence to connect the two species. Its fossils have been found in China.

<i>Lukousaurus</i> Extinct species of reptile

Lukousaurus is an archosauromorph based on most of a small skull's snout, displaying distinctive lachrymal horns, found in the Early Jurassic-age Lower Lufeng Formation, Yunnan, China and was described by Chung Chien Young in 1940. The generic name refers to the Lugou Bridge, lit. “crossroads”, near Beijing, where the Sino-Japanese War started. L. yini is tentatively classified as a theropod dinosaur by some allied to ceratosaurs, by others a coelurosaur. Its skull is rather robust for its size though the teeth were described by the author as typically theropodan. Whatever Lukousaurus was, it was definitely an archosauromorph.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heterodontosauridae</span> Extinct family of dinosaurs

Heterodontosauridae is a family of ornithischian dinosaurs that were likely among the most basal (primitive) members of the group. Their phylogenetic placement is uncertain but they are most commonly found to be primitive, outside of the group Genasauria. Although their fossils are relatively rare and their group small in numbers, they have been found on all continents except Australia and Antarctica, with a range spanning the Early Jurassic to the Early Cretaceous.

The Lufeng Formation is a Lower Jurassic sedimentary rock formation found in Yunnan, China. It has two units: the lower Dull Purplish Beds/Shawan Member are of Hettangian age, and Dark Red Beds/Zhangjia'ao Member are of Sinemurian age. It is known for its fossils of early dinosaurs. The Dull Purplish Beds have yielded the possible therizinosaur Eshanosaurus, the possible theropod Lukousaurus, and the "prosauropods" "Gyposaurus" sinensis, Lufengosaurus, Jingshanosaurus, and Yunnanosaurus. Dinosaurs discovered in the Dark Red Beds include the theropod Sinosaurus triassicus, the "prosauropods" "Gyposaurus", Lufengosaurus, and Yunnanosaurus, indeterminate remains of sauropods, and the early armored dinosaurs Bienosaurus and Tatisaurus.

The Chuanjie Formation, is a geological formation in Yunnan, China. It dates back to the Middle Jurassic. It was formerly referred to as being the lower member of the "Upper Lufeng" as opposed to the underlying "Lower Lufeng" now referred to as the Lufeng Formation. Tracks of theropods and sauropods, as well as thyreophorans are known from the formation.

Phyllodontosuchus is a genus of sphenosuchian, a type of basal crocodylomorph, the clade that comprises the crocodilians and their closest kin. It is known from a skull and jaws from Lower Jurassic rocks of Yunnan, China. Phyllodontosuchus is unusual because some of its teeth were leaf-shaped, like those of some herbivorous dinosaurs, and it does not appear to have been a strict carnivore like most other crocodylomorphs.

<i>Dibothrosuchus</i> Extinct genus of reptiles

Dibothrosuchus is a genus of sphenosuchian, a type of basal crocodylomorph, the clade that comprises the crocodilians and their closest kin. It is known from several partial skeletons and skulls. These fossils were found in Lower Jurassic rocks of Yunnan, China. Dibothrosuchus was a small terrestrial crocodylomorph that probably had a keen sense of hearing, and thus was probably a vocal animal like modern crocodilians.

<i>Platyognathus</i> Extinct genus of reptiles

Platyognathus is an extinct genus of protosuchian crocodyliform. Fossils are known from the Early Jurassic Lower Lufeng Formation in Yunnan, China and belong to the type and only species, P. hsui.

Shuangbaisaurus is genus of theropod dinosaur, possibly a junior synonym of Sinosaurus. It lived in the Early Jurassic of Yunnan Province, China, and is represented by a single species, S. anlongbaoensis, known from a partial skull. Like the theropods Dilophosaurus and Sinosaurus,Shuangbaisaurus bore a pair of thin, midline crests on its skull. Unusually, these crests extended backwards over the level of the eyes, which, along with the unusual orientation of the jugal bone, led the describers to name it as a new genus. However, Shuangbaisaurus also possesses a groove between its premaxilla and maxilla, a characteristic which has been used to characterize Sinosaurus as a genus. Among the two morphotypes present within the genus Sinosaurus, Shuangbaisaurus more closely resembles the morphotype that is variably treated as a distinct species, S. sinensis, in its relatively tall skull.

<i>Yuxisaurus</i> Extinct genus of thyreophroan dinosaurs

Yuxisaurus is an extinct genus of basal thyreophoran dinosaur from the Early Jurassic (Sinemurian-Toarcian) Fengjiahe Formation of southwestern China. The type species is Yuxisaurus kopchicki.

<i>Jakapil</i> Extinct genus of dinosaurs

Jakapil is a genus of basal thyreophoran dinosaur from the Candeleros Formation of Argentina. The type species is Jakapil kaniukura.

References

  1. Dong Zhiming (1992). Dinosaurian Faunas of China. China Ocean Press, Beijing. ISBN   978-3-540-52084-9.
  2. Simmons D.J. (1965), The non-therapsid reptiles of the Lufeng Basin, Yunnan, China. Field Geol 15; 1-93.
  3. Z. Dong. (1990). "Stegosaurs of Asia". In: K. Carpenter and P. J. Currie (eds.), Dinosaur Systematics: Perspectives and Approaches, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge pp. 255-268
  4. Lucas S.G. (1996). The thyreophoran dinosaur Scelidosaurus from the Lower Jurassic Lufeng Formation, Yunnan, China. pp. 81-85, in Morales, M. (ed.), The Continental Jurassic. Museum of Northern Arizona Bulletin 60.
  5. Norman, David B.; Butler, Richard J.; Maidment, Susannah C.R. (2007). "Reconsidering the status and affinities of the ornithischian dinosaur Tatisaurus oehleri Simmons, 1965". Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 150 (4): 865–874. doi: 10.1111/j.1096-3642.2007.00301.x .
  6. Raven, T.J., Barrett, P.M., Xu, X., and Maidment, S.C.R. (2019). "A reassessment of the purported ankylosaurian dinosaur Bienosaurus lufengensis from the Lower Lufeng Formation of Yunnan, China". Acta Palaeontologica Polonica64