Gigantspinosaurus was a herbivore (plant-eater) that lived in
China
during the
late Jurassic period,
about 160 million years ago. It is the earliest known member of the
Stegosauria (the Infraorder tha includes
Stegosaurus and
Kentrosaurus among
others).
The creature's name
means "giant-spined lizard". The "giant" in the name refers
to the animal's comparatively large shoulder spines - Gigantspinosaurus had
very large shoulder spines, but the bony plates on its back were relatively small.
Gigantspinosaurus about 13 feet (4 meters) long, and probably weighed around 500 pounds (225 kilograms).
It was thus considerably smaller than many of its later relatives such as
Stegosaurus and
Kentrosaurus.
The first
fossils of
Gigantspinosaurus were found in the Sichuan province of
China in
1992.
These included a partial skeleton that was missing only the hind feet, tail and
skull (except for the lower jaw).
However, for a number of years, some scientists in the West considered
"Gigantspinosaurus" to be a "nomen nudum" (a scientific name that
failed because an adequate description had not yet been published). Since
articles published by Tracy L. Ford, and by Susannah C. R. Maidment and Guangbaio Wei,
both in
2006,
much more information about the animal has been available in the West.
One interesting aspect of these new articles is that in her article,
Tracy L. Ford argued that previous reconstructions of Gigantspinosaurus had attached
the shoulder spines upside-down, and the spines should actually point upwards ending
higher than the top of the animal's back.
Gigantspinosaurus was a member of the Ornithischia ("bird-hipped") order of dinosaurs. What this means, is that although Gigantspinosaurus was not closely related to birds, it did have similarly shaped pelvic bones.
Gigantspinosaurus lived about 160 million years ago, during the Jurassic period.
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