Xianshanosaurus

 Xianshanosaurus (meaning "Xianshan lizard") is a genus of titanosaur sauropod dinosaurfrom the Early Cretaceous (Aptian-Albian) of the Ruyang Basin in Henan Province, China. It was described in 2009 by a team of Chinese paleontologists. The type species is X. shijiagouensis.[1]

Xianshanosaurus
Temporal range: Early Cretaceous, Aptian–Albian 
PreꞒ
Ꞓ
O
S
D
C
P
T
J
K
Pg
N
Xianshanosaurus skeleton.jpg
Reconstructed skeleton
Scientific classificatione
Kingdom:Animalia
Phylum:Chordata
Clade:Dinosauria
Clade:Saurischia
Clade:†Sauropodomorpha
Clade:†Sauropoda
Clade:†Macronaria
Clade:†Somphospondyli
Clade:†Titanosauria
Genus:†Xianshanosaurus
Lü et al., 2009
Type species
Xianshanosaurus shijiagouensis
Lü et al., 2009

ClassificationEdit

Mathew Wedel and Mike Taylor, made a cladistic analysis of the pneumaticity of caudal vertebrae. The analysis found that Xianshanosaurus was a basal titanosaurian, with Malawisaurus and Trigonosaurus as its sister taxa. The cladogram found is shown below:[2]

Macronaria
 

Camarasaurus

 
 
 
 

Giraffatitan

 
 
 

Cedarosaurus

 
 

Venenosaurus

 
 
 
 
 

Malawisaurus

 
 

Trigonosaurus

 
 

Xianshanosaurus

 
 
 
 

Gondwanatitan

 
 

Aeolosaurus

 
 
 
 
 

Alamosaurus

 
 

Opisthocoelicaudia

 
 
 
 

Neuquensaurus

 
 
 

Rocasaurus

 
 

Saltasaurus

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

HabitatEdit

Xianshanosaurus shared its habitat with Ruyangosaurus, "Huanghetitan" ruyangensis, Yunmenglong, Luoyanggia, and Zhongyuansaurus. The Haoling Formation was initially thought to be Cenomanian in age, but is now considered Aptian-Albian.[3]


This article uses material from the Wikipedia article
 Metasyntactic variable, which is released under the 
Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.