Jinzhousaurus

Jinzhou lizard

• Jinzhou · Chinese · Jinzhou (city in Liaoning Province, China)
• saurus · Greek · lizard

Jinzhousaurus is named after Jinzhou, a city in Liaoning Province, northeastern China, near where the fossil was discovered. The second element, '-saurus', comes from the Greek word 'sauros', meaning lizard, a standard suffix in dinosaur nomenclature. The name therefore means 'Jinzhou lizard', honouring the locality of the find. It was one of several dinosaurs described from the famous Early Cretaceous Yixian Formation of Liaoning.

Named by

Wang and Xu

Year named

2001

Period

Early Cretaceous

Stage

Aptian

Found in

Yixian Formation, Liaoning Province, China

Jinzhousaurus is an ornithopod dinosaur (iguanodontian), known from a well-preserved skull and partial skeleton. It is one of the early-branching iguanodontians from the Jehol Biota of Liaoning and provides important data on the evolution of this group in Asia.