Bellusaurus (meaning ''Beautiful Lizard'') is a genus of short necked sauropod from the temporal range, Middle Jurassic 170 million years ago.
Discovery and naming[]
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[]
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.
Gallery[]
Bellusaurus/Gallery