Wuerhosaurus

Graphic representation of Wuerhosaurus

• China ( Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia )

• Wuerhosaurus homheni Dong, 1973
• Wuerhosaurus ordosensis Dong, 1993

Wuerhosaurus was a dinosaur genus from the group of Stegosauria. She was characterized by the flat bony plates on the back and lived in the Lower Cretaceous in East Asia.

Features

There are two known species of the genus Wuerhosaurus: W. was homheni with 7 to 8 meters in length is relatively large, while W. ordosensis was a small Stegosaurus with an estimated 4 meters in length. Like all members of this group they carried on the back and at the top of the tail, a double row of bony plates ( osteoderms ). These plates were compared with those of other Stegosaurus smaller and rounder and had a long ridge approach. The exact arrangement of the plates is not known due to the sparse finds. At the tip of the tail Wuerhosaurus wore four bony spines.

As with most stegosaurs the front legs were short and strong and the hind legs long and columnar. Characterized the head was positioned close to the ground, possibly even closer than in the other known types of Stegosauria. The animal was moving quadruped ( on all fours ) and was continued herbivores. The head itself is not known.

Fossil finds

Wuerhosaurus homheni, the type species, was first described in 1973 by Dong Zhiming. He comes from the Tugulu Group in the Autonomous Region of Xinjiang in Western China and was after the neighborhood Orku (Chinese乌尔禾 区, pinyin Wū'ěrhé Qū, the prefecture-level city of Karamay duly ) appointed.

It is the time between Valanginian and Albian (139 to 100 million years) dated. The 1993 also described by Dong W. ordosensis, the smaller species, was found in the Ejinhoro lineup in Ordosbecken in Inner Mongolia. Him one belongs to the Barremian one ( 130-126 million years). Thus Wuerhosaurus lived in the Lower Cretaceous is one of the youngest representatives of Stegosauria that had its heyday in the Upper Jurassic.