RUYANGOSAURUS
a titanosaurian sauropod dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous of China.
Pronunciation: roo-YAN-go-SOR-us
Meaning: Ruyang County Lizard
Author/s: Lu
et al. (
2009)
Synonyms: None known
First Discovery: Henan, China
Acta Ordinal: #684
Ruyangosaurus giganteus
(Huge Ruyang Lizard)Etymology
Ruyangosaurus is derived from "Ruyang" (for Ruyang County where the holotype was discovered) and the Greek "sauros" (lizard).
The
species epithet,
giganteus, means "huge" in Greek.
Discovery
The remains of
Ruyangosaurus were discovered in the Haoling Formation (originally thought to be the Cenomanian-Turonian-aged Mangchuan Formation) at Shengshuigou, Shaping Village, Liudian (aka Gudian) Town, Ruyang County, Henan Province, China.
The
holotype (41HIII-0003, housed in
the Henan Geological Museum) is a nearly complete dorsal (back) vertebra, a nearly complete cervical (neck) vertebra that may actually be another back vertebra, a neck rib, a back rib, a partial right thighbone, and a right shinbone some 127cm in length.
Estimations
Timeline:
Era: Mesozoic
Epoch: Early Cretaceous
Stage: Aptian-Albian
Age range: 120-100 mya
Stats:
Est. max. length: 31 meters
Est. max. hip height: 5 meters
Est. max. weight: 65 tons
Diet: Herbivore
References
• Bonaparte JF and Coria RA (1993) "Un nuevo y gigantesco saurópodo titanosaurio de la
Formación Río Limay (Albiano-Cenomaniano) de la provincia del Neuquén, Argentina".
Ameghiniana, 30: 271-282. [defines Andesauridae.]
• Lu J-C, Xu L, Jia S-H, Zhang X-I, Zhang J-M, Yang L-I, You H-I and Ji Q (2009) "
A new gigantic sauropod dinosaur from the Cretaceous of Ruyang, Henan, China".
Geological Bulletin of China, 28(1): 1-10.
• Paul GS (2016) "
The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs: Second Edition".
• Sassani N and Bivens GT (2017) "
The Chinese colossus: an evaluation of the phylogeny of Ruyangosaurus giganteus and its implications for titanosaur evolution".
PeerJ Preprints, 5: e2988v1 DOI: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.2988v1.
• Molina-Perez R and Larramendi A (2020) "
Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs: The Sauropods" [aka Dinosaur Facts and Figures: The Sauropods and Other Sauropodomorphs].
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To cite this page:
Atkinson, L.
"
RUYANGOSAURUS :: from DinoChecker's dinosaur archive".
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http://www.dinochecker.com/dinosaurs/RUYANGOSAURUS›. Web access: 21st Oct 2026.
