Tsintaosaurus
"Qingdao lizard"
- Lived
- 84 to 72 million years ago, Late Cretaceous
- Diet
- Herbivore
- Group
- Ornithopods, Hadrosauridae
- Found in
- China
- Named by
- Young 1958
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
80 million years ago
Habitat
Rivers and lakes shaped its landscape in what is now eastern China. Tanius and Laiyangosaurus also occur in the region's dinosaur-bearing rocks.
Field notes
About Tsintaosaurus
What it was like
Tsintaosaurus was a duck-billed plant eater from the branch of hadrosaurs that carried hollow crests on their heads. It had a broad beak and rows of grinding teeth for chewing tough plants, and it could walk on all fours or on its hind legs.
Its crest has a long story. The first reconstruction showed a single spike pointing up and forward from its forehead, like a unicorn. A later study of the skull found that this bone was only part of a much larger, hollow crest, rising tall above the snout.
Its world
It lived about 84 to 72 million years ago, in the Late Cretaceous, in what is now eastern China. Its bones come from the Jingangkou Formation, where it lived alongside the hadrosaurs Tanius and Laiyangosaurus.
How it was found
Young named Tsintaosaurus in 1958 from several finds. It remains one of the best known crested hadrosaurs from Asia.
Field gallery
More views of Tsintaosaurus
Scenes reconstructed from the available fossil evidence.
1 of 3
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 Tsintaosaurus.
The evidence
The science behind Tsintaosaurus
Which parts of the picture come from its own bones, and which come from its relatives.
From its own fossils
- Skull remains preserve tall nasal bones and upper snout bones that helped form the crest.
- The paired nasal bones join along the middle of the crest.
- Scans show that the narrow nasal spine is solid inside.
Borrowed from relatives
- Comparisons with Corythosaurus and Lambeosaurus help restore missing parts of the crest and its air passages.
Still unknown
- The full outline and angle of its crest.
- Its color.
- How its crest changed throughout growth.
Often drawn wrong
- Older pictures give it a lone unicorn-like spike; later work reconstructs a broader crest built from several skull bones.
Discovery timeline
- 1958Named itYoung
- 2013SkullPrieto-Márquez & Wagner
- 2020SkullZhang et al.
Key papers
The research behind what we know of Tsintaosaurus
Named it
Named a duck-billed dinosaur with an unusual upright nasal crest from China.
The dinosaurian remains of Laiyang, Shantung. Palaeontologia Sinica, New Series C, Whole Number 42: 1-138
No link available
Skull
Reconstructed a tall, broad crest that included upper snout bones as well as the familiar nasal spine.
The ‘Unicorn’ Dinosaur That Wasn’t: A New Reconstruction of the Crest of Tsintaosaurus and the Early Evolution of the Lambeosaurine Crest and Rostrum. PLoS ONE 8: e82268
Read the paper : The ‘Unicorn’ Dinosaur That Wasn’t: A New Reconstruction of the Crest of Tsintaosaurus and the Early Evolution of the Lambeosaurine Crest and Rostrum (opens in a new tab)Skull
Scanned the nasal spine, found a solid interior and identified a fracture that affects its restored angle.
Internal morphology of nasal spine of Tsintaosaurus spinorhinus (Ornithischia: Lambeosaurinae) from the upper cretaceous of Shandong, China. Historical Biology 33: 1697-1704
Read the paper : Internal morphology of nasal spine of Tsintaosaurus spinorhinus (Ornithischia: Lambeosaurinae) from the upper cretaceous of Shandong, China (opens in a new tab)
Close relatives
Other members of Hadrosauridae
Sources: Wikidata