Chialingosaurus

Chialing lizard

• Chialing · Chinese · referring to the Jialing (Chialing) River in Sichuan, China
• -o- · Greek · connecting vowel
• sauros · Greek · lizard

The name combines "Chialing" — the Wade-Giles romanisation of the Jialing River (嘉陵江) in Sichuan Province, China, near where the fossils were discovered — with the Greek word "sauros" meaning "lizard." The name therefore means "Chialing lizard," honouring the river and region of its discovery. It follows a common naming convention for Chinese dinosaurs found near major waterways.

Named by

Young

Year named

1959

Period

Late Jurassic

Stages

Oxfordian – Kimmeridgian

Found in

Shaximiao Formation, Sichuan Province, China

Chialingosaurus is a stegosaurid dinosaur — one of the earliest known stegosaurs from China. It is known from a partial skeleton including vertebrae, limb bones, and some plates/spines. It is generally accepted as a valid genus, though the material is somewhat fragmentary, leading some researchers to regard its exact phylogenetic position with caution.