Zizhongosaurus chuanchengensis
After being misspelled Zishongosaurus just a couple of lines into its official 1983 description by Zhiming Dong, Zizhongosaurus managed to avoid further embarrassment by cunningly getting itself ignored by almost all palaeontologists since then. That wasn't too hard because its remains aren't the best, but they're not the worst either, and other dinosaurs have been afforded far more attention on the strength of less.
Zizhongosaurus is based on a partial back vertebra with a distinct spine that flares out into a paddle towards the end, the partial shaft of an upper arm, and a hip bone, probably (though not certainly) all from the same individual, that were described as the property of a "small primitive sauropod" by Dong who provisionally referred it to Cetiosaurinae: a group of chunky sauropods known as "whale lizards". For the record; cetiosaurids are nothing like whales and Zizhongosaurus is not much like any known cetiosaurid. Later research found it to be a member of Vulcanodontidae, or perhaps Shunosaurinae.
A second species—Zizhongosaurus huangshibanensis—was mentioned by Li Kui way back in 1999, but remains naked (in a literary sense) because it has yet to be officially described.
Zizhongosaurus is based on a partial back vertebra with a distinct spine that flares out into a paddle towards the end, the partial shaft of an upper arm, and a hip bone, probably (though not certainly) all from the same individual, that were described as the property of a "small primitive sauropod" by Dong who provisionally referred it to Cetiosaurinae: a group of chunky sauropods known as "whale lizards". For the record; cetiosaurids are nothing like whales and Zizhongosaurus is not much like any known cetiosaurid. Later research found it to be a member of Vulcanodontidae, or perhaps Shunosaurinae.
A second species—Zizhongosaurus huangshibanensis—was mentioned by Li Kui way back in 1999, but remains naked (in a literary sense) because it has yet to be officially described.
(Zizhong lizard from Chuancheng)Etymology
Zizhongosaurus is derived from "Zizhong" (for Zizhong County) and the Greek "saurus" (lizard).
The species epithet, chuanchengensis, is derived from "Chuancheng" (a town known to locals as "Boat City" because of its location on the roughly boat-shaped Mount Yuezhongloushan) and the Latin "ensis" (from).
Discovery
The remains of Zizhongosaurus were discovered in the Xintiangou Formation (previously known as the "Lianggaoshan" Formation), 15-20 meters above the Daanzhai Member of the Ziliujing Formation, at Luochuanjing, Zizhong County, Sichuan Province, China.
The holotype (V9067.1-3) includes a partial dorsal (back) vertebra, a partial right humerus (upper arm bone), a pubis (hip bone), and several other fragments.
