Outline: a typical sauropod
Datousaurus
"chieftain lizard"
Type species Datousaurus bashanensis
- Lived
- 175 to 155 million years ago, Middle Jurassic to Late Jurassic
- Diet
- Herbivore
- Length
- about 15 m (49 ft)
- Group
- Sauropods
- Found in
- China
- Named by
- Dong and Tang 1984
Size comparison
To scale
Scale in metersOutline: typical sauropod shape
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
165 million years ago
Field notes
About Datousaurus
What it was like
Datousaurus was a sauropod about 15 meters (49 feet) long. It had a large, deep skull for a sauropod and a fairly short neck.
Its world
It lived in the Jurassic, in what is now China. It comes from the Shaximiao Formation, where it shared the land with the sauropod Shunosaurus, the stegosaur Huayangosaurus and the predator Gasosaurus.
How it was found
Dong and Tang named Datousaurus in 1984. The type species is Datousaurus bashanensis.
Lived alongside
Found in the same rock formations
Close relatives
Other members of Eusauropoda
Sources: WikidataNamed in: Z. Dong and Z. Tang. 1984. [Note on a new Mid-Jurassic sauropod (Datousaurus bashanensis gen. et sp. nov.) from Sichuan Basin, China]. Vertebrata PalAsiatica 22(1):69-75