Open Paleo

Jingshanosaurus

Zhang & Yang, 1995 JING-SHAHN-o-SAWR-us

Named after the town of Jingshan ("Golden Hill") near the fossil locality in Lufeng County, Yunnan, China; meaning "Jingshan lizard"

201.4–199.5 million years ago Hettangian, Early Jurassic
Early Jurassic stages

Jingshanosaurus is a genus of sauropodomorph dinosaurs from the early Jurassic period (201.4 to 196.5 million years ago, Hettangian age) of China. The type and only species is Jingshanosaurus xinwaensis. Its maximum weight was around 4.3 t (4.7 short tons) with an adult femur length of 845 mm (33.3 in). The genus grew up to 5 m (16 ft) long.

Under dispute

Jingshanosaurus xinwaensis is recovered on the sauropod side of Massospondylidae, within Sauropodiformes as McPhee and colleagues (2014) define it, in most analyses of the Yates matrix and its successors, often as the sister of Seitaad (McPhee and colleagues, 2014; Zhang and colleagues, 2020; Fernández and Werneburg, 2022; Hu and colleagues, 2026). Rauhut and colleagues (2020) instead recover it with Seitaad and Yunnanosaurus within Massospondylidae, a result Fernández and Werneburg (2022) did not recover on a version of the same matrix, and Chapelle and Choiniere (2018) recover Jingshanosaurus and Seitaad outside both Massospondylidae and Sauropodiformes.

Diagnosis

  1. Caudal margin of the external naris caudal to the mid-length of the maxillary tooth row and to the rostral margin of the antorbital fenestra
  2. Ventrally constricted subtriangular orbit
  3. Rostrocaudally shortened jugal plate at the suborbital region
  4. Height-to-length ratio of the dentary greater than 0.2
  5. Distally recurved long axis of the tooth crowns

Species

Jingshanosaurus xinwaensis Zhang & Yang, 1995

Type species

Named for Xinwa Village, about 6 km from Jinshan Town in northeast Lufeng, Yunnan Province, China.

Holotype
LFGT-ZLJ0113 , Lufeng World Dinosaur Valley
Material
A well-preserved, nearly complete skeleton (~9 m) with skull and mandibles, cervical, dorsal, sacral, and caudal vertebrae, and a nearly complete appendicular skeleton.
Horizon
Shawan Member, Lufeng Formation, Hettangian, Early Jurassic , 201.4–199.5 million years ago
Locality
Xinwa, Jinshan, Yunnan, China

Synonyms of the genus

Name Type Reason
Chuxiongosaurus junior subjective Zhang and colleagues (2020) synonymized Chuxiongosaurus lufengensis with Jingshanosaurus xinwaensis, referring its holotype to the species and rejecting three of the four characters proposed to distinguish it.

References

  1. Zhang, Y.; Yang, Z. (1995). A new complete osteology of Prosauropoda in Lufeng Basin, Yunnan, China. 1-100. Yunnan Publishing House of Science and Technology, Kunming, China. zhang1995a
  2. Zhang, Q. N.; Wang, T.; Yang, Z. W.; You, H. L. (2020). Redescription of the cranium of Jingshanosaurus xinwaensis (Dinosauria: Sauropodomorpha) from the Lower Jurassic Lufeng Formation of Yunnan Province, China. The Anatomical Record 303: 759-771. Wiley. doi:10.1002/ar.24113

    Redescription of the cranium; gives the holotype as LFGT-ZLJ0113 (field number LV003), provides an emended cranial diagnosis, and recovers Jingshanosaurus among the earliest-diverging sauropodiforms.

    zhang2020a
  3. Jones, B. (2026). The Princeton Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs: Sauropods. Princeton University Press.

    Source of the mass and hip height estimates.

    jones2026b
  4. Rauhut, O. W. M.; Holwerda, F. M.; Furrer, H. (2020). A derived sauropodiform dinosaur and other sauropodomorph material from the Late Triassic of Canton Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Swiss Journal of Geosciences 113(1). Pensoft Publishers. doi:10.1186/s00015-020-00360-8

    Recovered Jingshanosaurus with Seitaad and Yunnanosaurus as a subclade within Massospondylidae.

    rauhut2020a
  5. McPhee, B. W.; Yates, A. M.; Choiniere, J. N.; Abdala, F. (2014). The complete anatomy and phylogenetic relationships of Antetonitrus ingenipes (Sauropodiformes, Dinosauria): implications for the origins of Sauropoda. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 171(1): 151-205. doi:10.1111/zoj.12127

    Defined Sauropodiformes as all taxa closer to Saltasaurus than to Massospondylus, and recovered Jingshanosaurus as the sister of Seitaad within it.

    mcphee2014a
  6. Fernández, O. R. R.; Werneburg, I. (2022). A new massopodan sauropodomorph from Trossingen Formation (Germany) hidden as 'Plateosaurus' for 100 years in the historical Tübingen collection. Vertebrate Zoology 72: 771-822. Pensoft Publishers. doi:10.3897/vz.72.e86348

    Recovered Jingshanosaurus at the base of Sauropodiformes on a version of the Rauhut and colleagues (2020) matrix.

    fernández2022a
  7. Hu, S. B.; Wang, Y. C.; Mo, X.; Zhang, X. Q.; Zeng, W. T.; Wang, T.; Sun, Z. B.; Dong, Q. X.; Guan, Q.; Liu, Y. H.; Zhang, Y. S.; Bing, Y.; Wang, Y. M.; You, H. L. (2026). A new sauropodomorph dinosaur from the Lower Jurassic Fengjiahe Formation of Dali of Yunnan Province, China. Royal Society Open Science 13(3). The Royal Society. doi:10.1098/rsos.252219

    Recovered Jingshanosaurus and Seitaad as the sister group of Sauropodiformes in the narrower sense, on the sauropod side of Massospondylidae.

    hu2026a
  8. Chapelle, K. E. J.; Choiniere, J. N. (2018). A revised cranial description of Massospondylus carinatus Owen (Dinosauria: Sauropodomorpha) based on computed tomographic scans and a review of cranial characters for basal Sauropodomorpha. PeerJ 6: e4224. PeerJ. doi:10.7717/peerj.4224

    Recovered Jingshanosaurus and Seitaad as the sister of Massospondylidae plus Sauropodiformes.

    chapelle2018a