OLogy Cards > Huayangosaurus taibaii

Huayangosaurus taibaii

As you can tell from its body plates and tail spikes, Huayangosaurus is related to Stegosaurus. Unlike Stegosaurus, though, this dinosaur had a shorter snout. It lived during the Middle Jurassic in a part of what is now China.

Stats

Scientific Name: Huayangosaurus taibaii
Pronunciation: HWAH-YAHNG-o-SAW-rus TIE-bay-eye
Meaning: "early Sichan lizard"
Locality Found: Sichuan, China
Age: Middle Jurassic, 180 to 160 million years ago
Length: 4 meters (13.5 feet) long
Weight: 1,360 kilograms (3,000 pounds)
Characteristics: This creature is known as a primitive stegosaur that had plates, spines, and teeth in the front of its mouth.

Stumper

Which characteristic separates Huayangosaurus from all other stegosaurs?

teeth in the front of the jaws

spikes on its tail

plates on its back

Correct!

When stegosaurs evolved after Huayangosaurus, they no longer had teeth in the front of their jaws.

Stumper

Huayangosaurus is the most primitive stegosaur. This means:

it has features most like the first stegosaur

Huayangosaurus is the first stegosaur

the other stegosaurs were ashamed to talk to it

Correct!

The fossil record is incomplete. We can never know which was first stegosaur. Scientists believe Huayangosaurus was most like the first stegosaur.

Fact or Fiction

Huayangosaurus, like some other stegosaurs, had huge spines sticking out from its shoulders.

Fact

Fiction

Fact

The spines were probably used as protection against predators or to fight other Huayangosaurus.

Image credits: main image, Rick Spears.

You might also like...

Because of the diamond-shaped plates on its back, Stegosaurus was given a name that means "roof lizard."

Meet some of the more unusual members of T. rex and Velociraptor's family tree.

Dinosaurs and other things that lived long ago

Correct!

Correct!

Fact

Card 017: Stegosaurus stenops

Beyond T. rex

PaleontOLogy