Gongbusaurus
Type species Gongbusaurus shiyii
- Lived
- 168 to 155 million years ago, Middle Jurassic to Late Jurassic
- Diet
- Herbivore
- Group
- Early ornithischians, Fabrosauridae
- Found in
- China
- Named by
- Dong et al. 1983
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
160 million years ago
Habitat
It lived in Jurassic China. Dinosaurs from the Shaximiao Formation include Shunosaurus, Yangchuanosaurus and Tuojiangosaurus.
Field notes
About Gongbusaurus
What it was like
Gongbusaurus was named from isolated, leaf-shaped teeth of a plant-eating dinosaur. Its body and any beak are unknown.
Its world
It lived in the Middle or Late Jurassic in what is now China. Its fossils come from the Shaximiao and Shishugou formations.
How it was found
Dong and colleagues named Gongbusaurus in 1983. A second species was later added, but since the first is based on teeth, many scientists doubt that the two belong together.
Field gallery
More views of Gongbusaurus
Scenes reconstructed from the available fossil evidence.
Lived alongside
Found in the same rock formations
A rock formation can hold fossils laid down millions of years apart, so not every animal here met Gongbusaurus.
The evidence
The science behind Gongbusaurus
Which parts of the picture come from its own bones, and which come from its relatives.
From its own fossils
- The type species is known from an isolated front tooth and an isolated cheek tooth.
- The teeth have leaf-shaped crowns with small points along their edges.
Borrowed from relatives
- Its missing head and body require comparisons with other ornithischians, but its closest relatives are disputed.
Still unknown
- The naming author later treated the type teeth as an indeterminate ornithischian, and a later study called them nondiagnostic, so whether they define a separate genus is unsettled.
- Whether the later species assigned to Gongbusaurus belongs with the type species.
- Its body proportions, skin covering and color.
Discovery timeline
- 1983Named itDong, Zhou & Zhang
- 2008Family treeButler, Upchurch & Norman
- 2015Family treeBoyd
Key papers
The research behind what we know of Gongbusaurus
Named it
Named Gongbusaurus from isolated teeth and compared them with those of other early plant-eating dinosaurs.
[Dinosaurs from the Jurassic of Sichuan]. Palaeontologica Sinica, New Series C, Whole Number 162: 1-136
No link available
Family tree
Found no support for Fabrosauridae as a natural family, changing the framework used to classify early ornithischians such as Gongbusaurus.
The phylogeny of the ornithischian dinosaurs. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 6: 1-40
Read the paper : The phylogeny of the ornithischian dinosaurs (opens in a new tab)Family tree
Treated the type species as of doubtful validity because it rests on isolated teeth, and left it out of the analysis.
The systematic relationships and biogeographic history of ornithischian dinosaurs. PeerJ 3: e1523
Read the paper : The systematic relationships and biogeographic history of ornithischian dinosaurs (opens in a new tab)
Close relatives
Other members of Fabrosauridae
Sources: Wikidata