Lishulong wangi wandered the supercontinent Laurasia throughout the Early Jurassic date, roughly 193 million years earlier.

This brand-new types was a non-sauropodan sauropodomorph dinosaur within the clade Massopoda.

“Non-sauropodan sauropodomorphs were the dominant group of herbivores from the Norian age (227 to 208 million years ago) till completion of the Early Jurassic (175 million years ago), when they were changed by sauropods,” stated Dr. Qian-Nan Zhang, a paleontologist with the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology and the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and coworkers.

“Since Thecodontosaurus was very first developed, over 40 legitimate genera of non-sauropodan sauropodomorphs have actually been reported worldwide.”

“Most of these genera were determined from Gondwana, primarily recuperated in South America and southern Africa.”

“The Early Jurassic date was a turning point in tracking the early radiation and diversity of sauropodomorph dinosaurs,” they included.

“Nearly all the non-sauropodan sauropodomorphs presently recuperated in China are reported from Yunnan province, and the Early Jurassic Lufeng Formation is the wealthiest fossil-bearing Mesozoic system in the province.”

“Although these Lufeng products are well maintained, and the abundance is high, they are under-represented in relative research studies and cladistic analyses, particularly the unusual skulls.”

Lishulong wangi‘s partial skeleton was recuperated from the upper-middle part of the Shawan Member of the Lufeng Formation near Jiudu Village in Yunnan province, China.

The specimen consists of the cranium and mandible, and 9 articulated cervical vertebrae.

“This brand-new types varies from other Lufeng kinds in both cranial and cervical attributes,” the paleontologists stated.

“It bears a number of autapomorphies of the nasal procedure, the maxillary neurovascular foramen, and the cervical neural spinal column.”

The group’s phylogenetic analysis exposes that Lishulong wangi is the sister-species of Yunnanosaurus

Lishulong wangi has the biggest skull amongst the plentiful sauropodomorph members from the Lufeng Formation,” the scientists stated.

“Therefore, it supplies a reconsideration for phylogenetic analyses utilizing private specimens of ascertainable ontogenetic phases as functional taxonomic systems to get much better resolution in basic.”

“Our research study supplies brand-new insights into previous authors handling the anatomy of those Lufeng types, representing the primary step towards a re-evaluation of this well-known dinosaur animals.”

“Moreover, the paleobiodiversity of early sauropodomorphs from Gondwana appears to reduce partially after the Triassic-Jurassic limit.”

“Therefore, we assume that non-sauropodan sauropodomorph genera endured and quickly radiated in Laurasia, particularly China.”

“Furthermore, the ancestral location restoration for Lufeng sauropodomorphs is briefly unclear.”

“However, the outcomes of several dispersions and exchanges can describe the continuing diversity supremacy of non-sauropodan sauropodomorphs from the Lufeng Formation.”

“The restricted paleobiogeographic info offered from Lishulong wangi offers proof that a minimum of the preliminary sauropodiform family trees that are carefully associated to near-Sauropoda or Sauropoda existed in southwestern China throughout the Early Jurassic date.”

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Q. Zhang et al2024. The biggest sauropodomorph skull from the Lower Jurassic Lufeng Formation of China. PeerJ 12: e18629; doi: 10.7717/ peerj.18629