Saichania

Skeletal reconstruction of Saichania chulsanensis

• Mongolia

• Saichania chulsanensis Maryańska, 1977

Saichania is a genus of bird Beck dinosaurs from the group of Ankylosauria who lived in the Upper Cretaceous in East Asia.

Features

Saichania reached a length of about 7 meters and is thus one of the larger ankylosauruses. He had a stocky body with short, powerful limbs and moved like all Ankylar quadruped ( on all fours ) away. As with all members of this group of the fuselage was covered with an armor of bony plates, besides numerous small plates wore Saichania also serially arranged spines. Also, the belly was covered with bony plates. The tail ended in a massive bony club, which probably served the enemy defenses.

The skull of Saichania was built like the all Ankylosauridae very wide and heavy, the snout ended in a broad, toothless horny beak. At the back of the head and on the cheeks he wore two bony outgrowths. The top of the skull was also covered by an armor of roundish bone plates. The teeth were adapted to small and leaves shaped like most ankylosauruses and a plant-based diet. Unlike urtümlicheren ankylosauruses Saichania had developed a bony palate. Inside the skull were air ducts, which presumably were the cooling and humidifying the air. This suggests that Saichania lived in a hot, dry habitat, for which the palate could talk, allowing him to consume even tough plant material.

Discovery and designation

Fossil remains of Saichania were in the 1970s, found by a Polish- Mongolian expedition to the Baruungoyot formation in the Mongolian region Ömnö Gobi aimag. The name derives from Saichania " Saichan ", the Mongolian word for "beautiful" and refers to its well-preserved skeleton, not its appearance. Only species and therefore type species in S. chulsanensis. There were the remains of three animals found, including two complete skull and a nearly complete skeleton and individual bone plates. The finds are in the Upper Cretaceous ( Campanian ) and thus dated to an age of around 83-72 million years.

System

Saichania is classified ( the younger, more highly developed representative) within the Ankylosauridae in the group of Ankylosaurinae. Here it forms together with other East Asian representatives as Talarurus, Pinacosaurus and Tianzhenosaurus an unnamed clade.