Xixiposaurus
Named for the village of Xixipo in Lufeng County, Yunnan, China, where the holotype was discovered, combined with Greek 'sauros' meaning 'lizard'.
Xixiposaurus is a genus of "prosauropod" dinosaur which existed in what is now Lower Lufeng Formation, China during the lower Jurassic period. It was first named by Sekiya Toru in 2010 and the type species is X. suni.
Under dispute
Sekiya (2010) recovers Xixiposaurus suni as the sister of Mussaurus within a Plateosauridae that includes Plateosaurus. Wang and colleagues (2025) and Hu and colleagues (2026) call it a possible massospondylid without analyzing it, and Barrett and colleagues (2024, 2026) find it taking several equally parsimonious positions and prune it from their consensus. It is placed at Plateosauria incertae sedis.
Diagnosis
- Steep slant of skull roof in lateral view
- Maximum height of mandible larger than twice the minimum height of the dentary
- 4th cervical centrum longest among cervicals
- Minimum width of pubic apron wider than width of pubic peduncle of ilium
- Fourth trochanter with V-shaped notch in lateral view
Species
Xixiposaurus suni Sekiya, 2010
Type species
Named for Professor Sun Ge of Jilin University.
- Holotype
- ZLJ0108 , Lufeng World Dinosaur Valley
- Material
- Skull and complete postcranium.
- Horizon
- Lufeng Formation, Hettangian–Sinemurian, Early Jurassic , 201.4–192.9 million years ago
- Locality
- Xixipo, Yunnan, China
References
- Sekiya, T. (2010). A new prosauropod dinosaur from Lower Jurassic in Lufeng of Yunnan. Global Geology 29(1): 6-15. sekiya2010a
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Jones, B. (2026). The Princeton Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs: Sauropods. Princeton University Press.
Source of the body length estimate.
jones2026b -
Barrett, P.; Chapelle, K.; Sciscio, L.; Broderick, T.; Zondo, M.; Munyikwa, D.; Choiniere, J. (2024). A new sauropodomorph dinosaur from the Late Triassic of the Mid-Zambezi Basin, Zimbabwe. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 69. Polska Akademia Nauk Instytut Paleobiologii (Institute of Paleobiology, Polish Academy of Sciences). doi:10.4202/app.01100.2023
Finds Xixiposaurus among the taxa with multiple most parsimonious positions and excludes it from the reduced consensus.
barrett2024a -
Barrett, P. M.; Botha, J.; Sciscio, L.; Stuart, B. P.; Lovegrove, J.; Munyikwa, D.; Zondo, M.; Broderick, T. J.; Edwards, S. F.; Mbambo, E.; Chapelle, K. E. J.; Dollman, K. N.; Tolan, S.; Choiniere, J. N. (2026). A new sauropodomorph dinosaur from the Pebbly Arkose Formation (Upper Triassic: Norian) of Kariba, Zimbabwe. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 24(2): 2678610. Informa UK Limited. doi:10.1080/14772019.2026.2678610
Finds Xixiposaurus among the taxa with multiple most parsimonious positions and removes it from the reduced consensus.
barrett2026a -
Wang, Y. M.; Zhang, Q. N.; Wang, Y. C.; Xu, H.; Chen, J.; Feng, Z.; Xu, X.; Wang, T.; You, H. L. (2025). A new Early Jurassic dinosaur represents the earliest-diverging and oldest sauropodomorph of East Asia. Scientific Reports 15(1). Springer Science and Business Media LLC. doi:10.1038/s41598-025-12185-2
Calls Xixiposaurus possibly a massospondylid, with Lufengosaurus, without analyzing it.
wang2025a -
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
Calls Xixiposaurus a putative massospondylid, with Lufengosaurus, without analyzing it.
hu2026a