Liaoningosaurus

What it was like

Liaoningosaurus was a very small armored dinosaur. The known fossils are young animals, and they have a bony shell over the belly as well as armor on the back, which is unusual for an ankylosaur.

Some scientists have suggested it lived partly in water and ate fish, based on its teeth and on remains found inside one skeleton. Others doubt this, and the question is still open.

Its world

It lived about 126 to 120 million years ago, in the Early Cretaceous, in what is now China. Its fossils come from the Yixian Formation, a land of lakes and forests shared with feathered dinosaurs such as Sinosauropteryx, Caudipteryx, Dilong and Yutyrannus.

How it was found

Xu and colleagues named Liaoningosaurus in 2001. The type species is Liaoningosaurus paradoxus.