Tianyulong

Tianyu dragon

• Tianyu · Chinese · short for Shandong Tianyu Museum of Nature, where the specimen is housed
• long · Chinese · dragon

The name honours the Shandong Tianyu Museum of Nature in China, which houses the fossil. It combines "Tianyu" with the Chinese word "long", meaning dragon, a common ending for Chinese dinosaur names. The type species is Tianyulong confuciusi, named for Confucius.

Named by

Zheng, Xu and Zhang

Year named

2009

Period

Early Cretaceous

Found in

Jehol Group (Tiaojishan Formation), Liaoning (Jianchang), China

A small heterodontosaurid ornithischian. It is notable for long, filament-like integumentary structures on the back, tail and neck, which bear on the debate over feather-like structures in ornithischians. The exact formation and age of the fossil have been debated; it is usually placed in the Jehol Biota.