Wuerhosaurus
Name: »Wuerho lizard«
Length: 7 m
Height: 2 m
Weight: 2 tons
Diet: herbivore
Time: Cretaceous (135 MYA)
Location: Asia (China)
Wuerhosaurus is a genus of stegosaurid dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous Period of China. It was roughly 7 metres long (23 ft).
Discovery and species
Wuerhosaurus homheni is the type species, described by Dong Zhiming in 1973 from the Tugulu Group in Xinjiang, western China. A smaller species from the Ejinhoro Formation in the Ordos Basin in Inner Mongolia, W. ordosensis, was formalized by the same researcher in 1993.
Paleobiology
It was lower to the ground than most other stegosaurids; scientists believe that this was an adaptation to let it feed on low-growing vegetation. Unlike Stegosaurus, Wuerhosaurus had shorter, rounded plates, whose purpose is debated. Wuerhosaurus, like other stegosaurids, had a thagomizer on the end of its tail, which featured four bony spikes that would most likely have been used for self-defense.
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Sauropsida
Superorder: Dinosauria
Order: Ornithischia
Suborder: Thyreophora
Infraorder: Stegosauria
Family: Stegosauridae
Genus: Wuerhosaurus Dong, 1973
Species:
W. homheni Dong, 1973
W. ordosensis Dong, 1993
