Outline: a typical sauropod
Omeisaurus
OH-may-SORE-us
"Omei lizard"
- Lived
- 171 to 143 million years ago, Middle Jurassic to Early Cretaceous
- Diet
- Herbivore
- Length
- about 20 m (66 ft)
- Group
- Sauropods, Mamenchisauridae
- Found in
- China
- Named by
- Young 1939
Size comparison
To scale
Scale in metersOutline: typical sauropod shape
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
155 million years ago
Field notes
About Omeisaurus
What it was like
Omeisaurus was a long-necked plant eater with one of the longest necks of its time, made of many long, light backbones. The biggest individuals were about 20 meters (66 feet) long, and much of that length was neck.
It belonged to the mamenchisaurs, a family of long-necked sauropods from the Jurassic of China, and was a close relative of Mamenchisaurus.
Its world
It lived in the Jurassic in what is now China. Its bones come from the Shaximiao Formation, a land of rivers and forests where it lived alongside the long-necked Shunosaurus and Mamenchisaurus, the stegosaurs Tuojiangosaurus and Huayangosaurus, and the big hunter Yangchuanosaurus.
How it was found
Young named Omeisaurus in 1939, after the mountain near the place where it was found. About ten finds are known, and several species have been named, some of them much smaller than others.
Lived alongside
Found in the same rock formations
Close relatives
Other members of Mamenchisauridae
Sources: WikidataNamed in: C.-C. Young. 1939. On a new Sauropoda, with notes on other fragmentary reptiles from Szechuan. Bulletin of the Geological Society of China 19(3):279-315