Pronunciation: klah-MAY-lee-SOR-us
Meaning: Klameli lizard
Author/s: Zhao (1993)
Synonyms: None known
First Discovery: Xinjiang, China
Discovery Chart Position: #384
Klamelisaurus gobiensis
The weathered remains of Klamelisaurus weren't the best to begin with. But when the extreme fluctuation in ambient temperature and humidity back at the prep' room in Beijing took their toll, all palaeontologists could do was lay the bits out for a quick review in case the fossils crumbled to dust before their very eyes.
A preliminary report mentioned a sauropod that had spoon-shaped teeth, high spines on its vertebrae, and robust limbs, and it was refered to the then-new but now defunct Klamelisaurinae, within an equally old and obscure clade called Bothrosauropodea. Although publishing author Xijing Zhao promised a more detailed description at a later date it never arrived, and Klamelisaurus may, in fact, be an adult specimen of the macronaian Bellusaurus.
The collosal but yet-to-be officially named vertebral column of the "theropod" Kelmayisaurus gigantus (Grady, 1993) from the same area is most probably a specimen of Klamelisaurus.
A preliminary report mentioned a sauropod that had spoon-shaped teeth, high spines on its vertebrae, and robust limbs, and it was refered to the then-new but now defunct Klamelisaurinae, within an equally old and obscure clade called Bothrosauropodea. Although publishing author Xijing Zhao promised a more detailed description at a later date it never arrived, and Klamelisaurus may, in fact, be an adult specimen of the macronaian Bellusaurus.
The collosal but yet-to-be officially named vertebral column of the "theropod" Kelmayisaurus gigantus (Grady, 1993) from the same area is most probably a specimen of Klamelisaurus.
Etymology
Klamelisaurus is derived from "klameli" (the Pinyin romanization for the fossil locality near the
Kelameilishan Mountains) and the Greek "sauros" (lizard).The species epithet, gobiensis, means "from the Gobi" in Latin.
Discovery
The first remains of Klamelisaurus were discovered in the Wucaiwan Member of the Shishugou Formation (formerly known as the Wucaiwan formation), 35 kilometers north of the abandoned town of Jiangjunmiao, Junggar Basin (aka Dzungarian Basin), Gobi desert, Uygur region of Xinjiang, China in 1982 by a research team from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, the National Academy of Sciences and the Xinjiang
Office of Petroleum, in a joint endevor entitled "Evolution of the Junggar Basin and the formation of petroleum". The rest of its remains were excavated in 1984.
The holotype (IVPP V9492) is a badly weathered, partial skeleton.
