Yunnanosaurus

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.

Yunnanosaurus

Jonathan Chen · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
SauropodiformesPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Diapsida
Length
7 mWikidata

Time the record covers

At least 6.6 million years on record.

The record covers at least 199.5 Mya to 192.9 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 201.4 Mya to 184.2 Mya.

Late Triassic — about 0 of 17 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 17 of 17 occurrencesEarly Jurassic202–201 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences201–201 Mya — about 1 occurrence201–200 Mya — about 1 occurrence200–199 Mya — about 1 occurrence199–199 Mya — about 1 occurrence199–198 Mya — about 1 occurrence198–198 Mya — about 1 occurrence198–197 Mya — about 1 occurrence197–196 Mya — about 1 occurrence196–196 Mya — about 1 occurrence196–195 Mya — about 1 occurrence195–195 Mya — about 1 occurrence195–194 Mya — about 1 occurrence194–193 Mya — about 1 occurrence193–193 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences193–192 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences192–192 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences192–191 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences191–190 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences190–190 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences190–189 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences189–189 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences189–188 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences188–187 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences187–187 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences187–186 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences186–186 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences186–185 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences185–184 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences184–184 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences199.5 Mya192.9 Mya201.9 Mya183.7 Mya

17 occurrences of Yunnanosaurus on record, most of them in the Early Jurassic. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

17 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

2 formations

Lufeng — 24.67°N, 102.59°ELufeng — 25.18°N, 102.08°ELufeng — 25.68°N, 104.08°ELufeng — 24.96°N, 102.08°EFengjiahe — 25.95°N, 101.91°E

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The named rock units Yunnanosaurus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Yunnanosaurus and its relatives

Early Jurassic

Where Yunnanosaurus and its relatives were recorded in the Early Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

31 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 10 sites for Yunnanosaurus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

8 references

Each of the 17 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Yunnanosaurus

Credit
Jonathan Chen
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Yunnanosaurus was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itSauropodiformes through timeFormations of the Early JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Young 1940