Bellusaurus (meaning ''Beautiful Lizard'') is a genus of short necked sauropod from the temporal range, Middle Jurassic 170 million years ago which measured about 4.8 metres (16 ft) long. Its fossils were found in Shishugou Formation rocks in the northeastern Junggar Basin in China.
Discovery and naming[]
Restored skeleton
The type and only species is Bellusaurus sui, is described and named by a Chinese paleontologist named Dong Zhiming in 1991. Seventeen inviduals of Bellusaurus sui were found in Shishugou Formation in the northeastern Junggar Basin in China. It is unknown what may have killed the herd, but it has been suggested that the herd had been killed in a flash flood. A paleontologist suggested they may have been juveniles left by their parents.
Description[]
Life restoration
Size compared to a human
It is unknown if the material representing Bellusaurus is from juvenile specimens. Juvenile characteristics of dinosaurs have been noted by Galton in 1982 of stegosaur growth, whose study would suggest that the group of small Bellusaurus sauropods were juveniles that were subjected to a single catastrophe resulting in the mass death assemblage seen from this discovery. Because of the uncertainty of the specimens age, it could be difficult to place the species into a specific taxonomic assignment due to having unstable morphological characteristics. Bellusaurus sui was 4.8 meters long in length, though if they may have been juveniles then they might've have been much bigger. Weight is unknown, and needs to be identified.
JPInstitute.com Description[]
Bellusaurus was a small, long-necked (sauropod) dinosaur that lived in what is now China. It belonged to the same family as Cetiosaurus , and it is not very well known, although parts of 17 different Bellusauruses were found in one spot.
Discovered in "Dinosaur valley" in 1954 by oil-seeking geologists, the Bellusaurus remains were found in a bone bed containing 17 individuals. The position of the remains suggests that a herd of these dinosaurs may have been caught in a flash flood and that the smaller individuals were killed. It is not known how large they may have grown. The known specimens are quite small for mid-Jurassic sauropods.