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Liushusaurus acanthocaudata
Taxonomy
Liushusaurus acanthocaudata was named by Evans and Wang (2010). Its type specimen is IVPP V15587A/B, a skeleton, and it is a 3D fossil preserving soft parts. Its type locality is Liutiaogou Village, Dashuangmiao Town, which is in a Barremian/Aptian lacustrine horizon in the Yixian Formation of China. It is the type species of Liushusaurus.
Synonymy list
| Year | Name and author |
|---|---|
| 2010 | Liushusaurus acanthocaudata Evans and Wang |
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If no rank is listed, the taxon is considered an unranked clade in modern classifications. Ranks may be repeated or presented in the wrong order because authors working on different parts of the classification may disagree about how to rank taxa.
†Liushusaurus acanthocaudata Evans and Wang 2010
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Diagnosis
| Reference | Diagnosis | |
|---|---|---|
| S. E. Evans and Y. Wang 2010 | A medium-sized (SPL = 66 mm in holotype) Early Cretaceous lizard. Differs from the Yixian lizards Yabeinosaurus (e.g. Evans et al. 2005) and Dalinghosaurus (Ji 1998; Ji & Ji 2004; Evans & Wang 2005) in having relatively longer forelimbs; differs from Dalinghosaurus in having more than six cervical vertebrae; differs from Yabeinosaurus in reaching skeletal maturity at a smaller size, in having expanded, hook-like (perforate) clavicles, and in having a proportionally shorter presacral region; differs from Xianglong (Li et al. 2007) in lacking elongated gliding ribs; differs from the Japanese Early Cretaceous Kuwajimalla (Evans & Manabe 2008) in lacking multicuspid teeth; and differs from both Yabeinosaurus and the Japanese Early Cretaceous Sakurasaurus (Evans & Manabe 2009) in lacking co-ossification of the postorbital and postfrontal and restriction of the upper temporal fenestra. Resembles Yabeinosaurus (Evans et al. 2005) and differs from Dalinghosaurus longidigitus (Evans & Wang 2005) and Late Jurassic German Bavarisaurus (Evans 1994a) in having proportionally shorter feet; differs from Mimobecklesisaurus (Early Cretaceous, China, Li 1985) and other Jurassic-Cretaceous paramacellodids (Hoffstetter 1967; Evans & Chure 1998) in lacking a body covering of rectangular osteoderms; differs from Jeholacerta (Ji & Ren 1999), Yabeinosaurus, and from the Early Cretaceous Lebanese Baabdasaurus (Arnold et al. 2002) in the elongate, spiky scales on the tail; differs from the Italian Early Cretaceous Chometokadmon (Evans et al. 2006) in having a much shorter parietal and a relatively shorter presacral body length; resembles the Late Jurassic German Ardeosaurus (Mateer 1982; Estes 1983) and differs from the Jurassic–Cretaceous Eichstaettisaurus (Evans et al. 1999, 2004) and the Early Cretaceous Iberian Meyasaurus (Evans & Barbadillo 1997) in having a slightly restricted upper temporal fenestra, loss of parietal foramen, and fewer teeth in the maxilla; resembles the Late Cretaceous Mongolian ‘mongolochamopines’ (Alifanov 2000) in having paired frontals, loss/reduction of the parietal foramen, and a short parietal, but differs in having proportionally shorter frontals and therefore a shorter, more rounded antorbital skull; differs from Meyasaurus, Dicrodon and Bicuspidon (Nydam & Cifelli 2002a, mid-Cretaceous, USA), Atokosaurus (Nydam & Cifelli 2002b, mid-Cretaceous, USA), and the ‘mongolochamopines’ Mongolochamops and Altanteius (Alifanov 2000, Upper Cretaceous, Mongolia) in having conical rather than cuspidate teeth; differs from the Early Cretaceous Spanish Hoyalacerta (Evans & Barbadillo 1999) in having fewer, larger teeth and proportionally longer limbs; differs from the Early Cretaceous Mexican Huehuecuetzpalli (Reynoso 1998) in the retention of a large free postfrontal, the absence of a parietal foramen, paired rather than fused frontals, and the absence of an elongated premaxilla; differs from Bavarisaurus (Evans 1994a) and the Spanish Early Cretaceous Scandensia (Evans & Barbadillo 1998) in having well-developed vertebral condyles, and from the latter in having a cruciformrather than rhomboid interclavicle and in rib morphology (narrow vs expanded ribs); differs from the Late Jurassic German Ardeosaurus (Mateer 1982), British Early Cretaceous Parasaurillus (Evans & Searle 2002), and Dalinghosaurus (Evans & Wang 2005) in lacking obvious sculpture on the skull bones, even in mature specimens; differs from the Jurassic–Cretaceous Parviraptor (Evans 1994b) in having a short single parietal, rather than paired elongate bones, and in lacking a parietal foramen; and differs from the Early Cretaceous Dorsetisaurus (Hoffstetter 1967) in lacking well-developed sculpture and in tooth morphology. Comparison with Pachygenys (Gao & Cheng 1999) is difficult as the latter is represented only by two, albeit very distinctive, lower jaws with eight teeth clustered in the anterior part of the dentary. The lower jaw dentition is not clearly visible in any of the Liushusaurus specimens, but the presence of 13 maxillary teeth distributed evenly along the bone renders it unlikely that they occluded with a lower jaw dentition like that of Pachygenys. Comparison with other taxa based on dentary specimens is similarly problematic, but Liushusaurus differs from the British Early Cretaceous Pseudosaurillus (Hoffstetter 1967; Evans & Searle 2002) in having larger teeth (very small in relation to jaw height in Pseudosaurillus) and from the Jurassic-Cretaceous Euramerican Saurillodon (Seiffert 1973) in jaw and tooth proportions (short robust dentary, larger recurved teeth in Saurillodon). |