Pronunciation: dah-tong-long
Meaning: Datong dragon
Author/s: Xu Shi-Chao et al. (2015)
Synonyms: None known
First Discovery: Shanxi Province, China
Discovery Chart Position: #893
Datonglong tianzhenensis
In 1989 and 1991 to 1994, Shijiazhuang Economic University of Hebei Province excavated over 2300 dinosaur specimens, mainly from Kangdailiang Quarry in the Huiquanpu Formation of Tianzhen County, most of which were named Tianzhenosaurus youngi (Pang and Cheng, 1998) and Huabeisaurus allocotus (Pang and Cheng, 2000). However, the quarry was not exhausted, not quite. The Shanxi Museum of Geological and Mineral Science and Technology (now Shanxi Museum of Geology, SXMG) discovered a lower jaw bone with a few teeth there during an expedition in 2008, and that solitary fossil is what Xu, You, Yi, Jia and a pair of Wangs named Datonglong in 2016.
(Datong dragon from Tianzhen)Etymology
Datonglong is derived from "Datong" (for Datong City) and the Chinese "long" (dragon). The species epithet, tianzhenensis, means "from Tianzhen" in Latin.
Discovery
The remains of Datonglong were discovered at "Kangdailiang Quarry" in the Huiquanpu (aka Huiquanbao) Formation, Wu Valley, Tianzhen County, Shanxi
(West Mountain) Province, northern China, by the Shanxi Museum of Geological and Mineral Science and Technology (now Shanxi
Museum of Geology, SXMG) in 2008.The holotype (SXMG V 00005) is a 34 cm long right dentary (tooth-bearing bone of the lower jaw) with a few teeth.
