Tsintaosaurus

Live reconstruction of Tsintaosaurus

• Shandong (China)

• Tsintaosaurus spinorhinus

Tsintaosaurus is a genus of bird Beck dinosaur from the group of Hadrosauridae that during the Upper Cretaceous ( Campanian ) of China lived. What is striking is the strange skull cap, whose exact appearance however is still unclear.

Features

Tsintaosaurus reached a length of approximately 10 meters. As with all Hadrosauriern his head was shaped by a duck -like widened and flattened snout, attended in the rows of teeth for a good grinding of plant food. He moved well predominantly on all fours on, but could also raise up on two legs.

The biggest mystery is the head shape dar. Tsintaosaurus is expected to the group of Lambeosaurinae whose heads was characterized by tubular or comb-shaped structures. The usual representation shows Tsintaosaurus with a unicorn -like crest which towered above the eyes upward. Later, it was assumed that this was due to the horizontal horn skull top, but then another copy with the upwardly projecting horn was found. That Tsintaosaurus had an eye-catching skull crest, is largely beyond doubt, but his exact appearance is still controversial. It is also possible that a skin flap from the Horn went to the beak.

Discovery and classification

The first fossils were (aka CC Young) described in 1958 by Chinese paleontologist Yang Zhongjian. The genus is after the Chinese city of Qingdao (formerly Tsingtao ) named in the vicinity of the first specimens were found. The specific epithet spinorhinus ( "thorn nose " ) alludes to the alleged skull shape. Other species have been described, but most likely represent only synonyms of T. spinorhinus dar.