Open Paleo

Huabeisaurus

Pang & Cheng, 2000 hwah-bay-SAWR-us /ˌhwɑːbeɪˈsɔːrəs/

Named for North China (Huabei, meaning 'north China' in Chinese) combined with Greek 'sauros' meaning 'lizard', hence 'North China lizard'.

100.5–72.2 million years ago Cenomanian–Campanian, Late Cretaceous
Late Cretaceous stages

Huabeisaurus was a genus of sauropod dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian to Maastrichtian stages, around 99.7-70.6 million years ago) of what is present-day northern China. The type species, Huabeisaurus allocotus, was first described by Pang Qiqing and Cheng Zhengwu in 2000. It is known from numerous remains found in the 1990s, which include teeth, partial limbs and vertebrae. Due to its relative completeness, Huabeisaurus represents a significant taxon for understanding sauropod evolution in Asia. Huabeisaurus comes from Kangdailiang and Houyu, Zhaojiagou Town, Tianzhen County, Shanxi province, China. The holotype was found in the unnamed upper member of the Huiquanpu Formation, which is Late Cretaceous (?Cenomanian-?Campanian) in age based on ostracods, charophytes, and fission-track dating.

Under dispute

Huabeisaurus was described as close to Titanosaurus (Pang and Cheng, 2000). D'Emic (2012) referred it to Euhelopodidae on synapomorphies, and Gallina and colleagues (2021) recover it as a euhelopodid, but most analyses place it among the basalmost titanosaurs (Poropat and colleagues, 2023; Han and colleagues, 2024).

Diagnosis

  1. Teeth strong and peg-like with tooth crown to tooth root length ratio of 3 to 1; upper part of crown slightly flat with short ridges on anterior and posterior margins
  2. Cervical vertebrae opisthocoelous with wide-flat ventral flute, wide and deep pleurocoels, and clearly bifurcated neural spines
  3. Dorsal vertebrae opisthocoelous with deep, regularly oval-shaped pleurocoels; neural spines high and unbifurcated
  4. Caudal vertebrae clearly amphicoelous; neural arches situated on anterior part of centrum; spines unbifurcated; chevrons Y-shaped and unbifurcated distally
  5. Ilium very large and long fan-shaped with pubic peduncle situated slightly anterior of middle of ilium lower edge and ischial peduncle undeveloped
  6. Femur straight, long, narrow, and flat with oblate femur head; fourth trochanter dilated on posterior inner lateral edge slightly above shaft midpoint; humerus-to-femur length ratio 0.78 to 1

Species

Huabeisaurus allocotus Pang & Cheng, 2000

Type species

From Ancient Greek 'allokatos' or 'allokotos' meaning 'strange' or 'peculiar'.

Holotype
HBV-20001 , Geoscience Museum, Shijiazhuang University of Economics
Material
2 teeth and a piece of nearly complete postcranial skeleton
Horizon
Huiquanpu Formation, Cenomanian–Campanian, Late Cretaceous , 100.5–72.2 million years ago
Locality
Kangdailiang, Shanxi, China Pang and Cheng (2000) number the formation's members rather than naming them, placing the holotype in the second of them.

Synonyms of the genus

Name Type Reason
Amphicoelicaudia nomen nudum Nomen nudum; never officially described, likely a junior synonym of Huabeisaurus.

References

  1. Pang, Q.; Cheng, Z. (2000). A new family of sauropod dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous of Tianzhen, Shanxi province, China. Acta Geologica Sinica (English Edition) 74(2): 117-125. doi:10.1111/j.1755-6724.2000.tb00438.x pang2000a
  2. Jones, B. (2026). The Princeton Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs: Sauropods. Princeton University Press.

    Source of the mass estimate.

    jones2026b
  3. Han, F.; Yang, L.; Lou, F.; Sullivan, C.; Xu, X.; Qiu, W.; Liu, H.; Yu, J.; Wu, R.; Ke, Y.; Xu, M.; Hu, J.; Lu, P. (2024). A new titanosaurian sauropod, Gandititan cavocaudatus gen. et sp. nov., from the Late Cretaceous of southern China. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 22(1): 2293038. Informa UK Limited. doi:10.1080/14772019.2023.2293038

    Recovered Huabeisaurus among the basalmost titanosaurs.

    han2024a
  4. D'Emic, M. D. (2012). The early evolution of titanosauriform sauropod dinosaurs. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 166: 624-671. doi:10.1111/j.1096-3642.2012.00853.x

    Referred Huabeisaurus to Euhelopodidae on its synapomorphies.

    d'emic2012b
  5. Gallina, P. A.; Canale, J. I.; Carballido, J. L. (2021). The Earliest Known Titanosaur Sauropod Dinosaur. Ameghiniana 58(1). Asociacion Paleontologica Argentina. doi:10.5710/amgh.20.08.2020.3376

    Recovered Huabeisaurus as a euhelopodid.

    gallina2021a
  6. Poropat, S. F.; Mannion, P. D.; Rigby, S. L.; Duncan, R. J.; Pentland, A. H.; Bevitt, J. J.; Sloan, T.; Elliott, D. A. (2023). A nearly complete skull of the sauropod dinosaur Diamantinasaurus matildae from the Upper Cretaceous Winton Formation of Australia and implications for the early evolution of titanosaurs. Royal Society Open Science 10(4): 221618. doi:10.1098/rsos.221618

    Recovered Huabeisaurus at the base of Titanosauria.

    poropat2023a