Pronunciation: YING-SHAHN-o-SOR-us
Meaning: Golden Hill Lizard
Author/s: Zhu Songlin (1994)
Synonyms: None known
First Discovery: Yunnan, China
Discovery Chart Position: #314
Yingshanosaurus jichuanensis
Yingshanosaurus is a Jurassic stegosaur that is comparable in general shape to its close Asian relative Tuojiangosaurus, though it's a tad smaller and sports a wing-shaped spine on each shoulder which are as slender as the plates on its back.
Its name is mostly seen enclosed in quotation marks (aka "scare quotes") which is what authors do with critters that lack an official description. And the reason for that is: its only outing in the literature was courtesy of a Children's dinosaur book written in Chinese, which is far from a valid scientific medium. Or so almost everyone assumed.
In fact, Zhou Shiwu coined Yingshanosaurus during a lecture on the Middle Jurassic Dashampu fauna at a palaeontological congress in Toulouse in 1985, which, although published a year later, lacked a description sufficient enough to drag it into the realms of officialdom. However, Zhu Songlin fully described the specimen in an official scientific paper in 1994, which slipped almost all Western eyes because it's also in Chinese. But that document is proving elusive, and the only known specimen of Yingshanosaurus has apparently been misplaced, so what we now know may be all we ever know.
Its name is mostly seen enclosed in quotation marks (aka "scare quotes") which is what authors do with critters that lack an official description. And the reason for that is: its only outing in the literature was courtesy of a Children's dinosaur book written in Chinese, which is far from a valid scientific medium. Or so almost everyone assumed.
In fact, Zhou Shiwu coined Yingshanosaurus during a lecture on the Middle Jurassic Dashampu fauna at a palaeontological congress in Toulouse in 1985, which, although published a year later, lacked a description sufficient enough to drag it into the realms of officialdom. However, Zhu Songlin fully described the specimen in an official scientific paper in 1994, which slipped almost all Western eyes because it's also in Chinese. But that document is proving elusive, and the only known specimen of Yingshanosaurus has apparently been misplaced, so what we now know may be all we ever know.
(Yingshan lizard from Jichuan)Etymology
Yingshanosaurus is derived from the Chinese "ying" (gold) and "shan" (hill or mountain), for the County of Jingshan (Golden Hill) where it was discovered, and the Greek "sauros" (lizard). The species epithet, jichuanensis, means "from Jichuan" in Latin.
Discovery
The remains of Yingshanosaurus were discovered in the Upper Shaximiao (Shangshaximiao) Formation, Jichuan Town, Yingshan County, Sichuan, China, by a Wan Jihou-led expedition in 1983.
The holotype (CV OO722) is the partial skeleton and fragmentary skull of an adult individual.
