Saichania
From Mongolian saihan (beautiful); meaning "beautiful one".
Late Cretaceous stages
Saichania is a genus of herbivorous ankylosaurid dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous period of Mongolia and China. The first fossils of Saichania were found in the early 1970s in the Baruungoyot Formation. In 1977, the type species Saichania chulsanensis was named.
Diagnosis
- Large external nostrils situated terminally, divided by horizontal septum separating large suboval foramen of true air passage from ventro-medially positioned passage leading to premaxillary sinus
- Occipital condyle weakly convex, directed ventrally
- Orbits anteriorly and posteriorly closed by partly neomorphic bones
- Palatal region with strongly developed anterior and posterior maxillary shelves
- Atlas and axis fused
- One opening for nerves IX-XII
- Pectoral girdle and fore limbs very massive with shortest metacarpals of any Asian ankylosaurid
Species
Saichania chulsanensis Maryańska, 1977
Type species
Named for Chulsan (also spelled Khulsan), the locality in Mongolia near which the holotype was discovered.
- Holotype
- GI SPS 100/151 , Paleontological Center, Mongolian Academy of Sciences
- Material
- Skull with jaws and complete anterior part of postcranial skeleton
- Horizon
- Baruungoyot Formation, Campanian, Late Cretaceous , 83.6–72.2 million years ago
- Locality
- Khulsan, site 11, Ömnögovi, Mongolia
References
-
Gradziński, R.; Jerzykiewicz, T. (1972). Additional geographical and geological data from the Polish-Mongolian Palaeontological Expeditions. Palaeontologia Polonica 27: 17-30.
Numbers the find on its Khulsan map, item 11, "a skeleton with skull of an ankylosaurid dinosaur", which Maryańska (1977) cites for the holotype.
gradziński1972a - Maryańska, T. (1977). Ankylosauridae (Dinosauria) from Mongolia. Palaeontologia Polonica 37: 85-151. maryańska1977a
-
Jones, B. (2026). The Princeton Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs: Ornithischians. Princeton University Press.
Source of the hip height estimate, and the appearance features.
jones2026a