Re: Stegosaurian genera

[Dinogeorge@aol.com]

In a message dated 1/28/01 6:05:56 PM EST, thescelosaurus@juno.com writes:

<< "Yingshanosaurus jichuanensis" is from the Yingshan of China, considered
 latest LJ.  It is based on an almost complete skeleton about 5 m in
 length, with wing-like parasacral spines.  The name was first mentioned
 in Dong, Zhou, and Zhang, 1983 (The dinosaurian remains from Sichuan
 Basin, China: *Paleontologia Sinica*, whole number 162, New Series C, 23,
 pp. 1-145), and a formal description is apparently complete but
 unpublished.  Glut's encyclopedia features a drawing of the skeleton. 
 The fact that both it and "Gigantospinosaurus" may be based on pretty
 complete specimens leads me to suspect that they might be the same
 animal, but I've been wrong before. >>

I have a 1984 date for this genus in the Dinosaur Genera List, but now that 
you mention it I >think< I recall seeing the name in a caption to a pelvis in 
the Sichuan monograph. My copy is buried, so if you or somebody happens to 
have one handy, I'd appreciate it if it could be looked up. I've seen the 
photos of the mounted skeleton and I cannot distinguish them from 
Tuojiangosaurus. Those are not parasacral spines, they're shoulder splates 
(my term for an osteoderm that is part plate and part spine); the drawing in 
Don's encyclopedia doesn't match his description in this regard.

The earliest spelling I've seen is Gigantspinosaurus (1993), in a list of 
Chinese ornithischians; the spelling Gigantospinosaurus appeared in 1999. 
It's not entirely clear this is a stegosaur (but it probably is); it could 
also be an iguanodontid of some kind with tall neural spines. I'd appreciate 
any more information about it. Most likely it was described in a Chinese grad 
student's dissertation that has yet to be published.