Introduction:
I am pretty sure you may not have even heard about this dinosaur because it was revealed recently in 2022 and it is called the Yuxisaurus. Yuxisaurus came to my understanding because of the recently revealed Mattel action figure for its Jurassic World: Rebirth line. At first I thought it was kind of nodosauridae but it was more than that and it lived earlier than any nodosauridae meaning this dinosaur is an extremely unique find. Let’s see what more we can discover about this new dinosaur!
Discovery:
Yuxisaurus was discovered in the Fengjiahe Formation of the Yunnan Province in China. The formation was close to a city called ‘Yuxi‘ and thus became the Yuxisaurus. While although exact year is not known for its discovery but its name was informally released to the public in 2021 until the actual paper was revealed about it.
The dinosaur discovered was only a partial skeleton which consisted parts of the skull, lots of back bones, some limb bones and at least 120 osteoderms. You may not know the meaning of osteoderms but what it means is the bony-bumps or spikes that grow on top of the skin and thus the name ‘osteo‘ meaning ‘bone’ and ‘derm‘ meaning ‘skin’. This has been see mainly in reptiles only though.
The full name of this dinosaur is Yuxisaurus kopchicki, with Yuxisaurus meaning the ‘Yuxi’s Lizard‘ where as the specific name refers to the honoring of a biologist named John J. Kopchick. Yuxisaurus’ discovery meant a lot of things and it helped piece together a puzzle that was already very patchy. The beginning or the basal thyreophorans were rare and not many were known.
You may know some basal thyreophorans like Scutellosaurus, Scelidosaurus, and Emausaurus but that was mainly it for the basal thyreophorans and it does not help explain the diversity of Stegosauridae and Ankylosauridae we would soon know and Yuxisaurus fits right in showing that the basal thyreophorans spread out far and wide which is why we can similar species in different regions of the world.
Biology:
Yuxisaurus is quite a small when compared with later thyreophorans but it is still big enough and it is more like a big cat size. Because the remains are quite fragmented, paleontologists estimated that it could be around 4 m (13 feet) in length and 1.3 m (4.3 feet) tall and could have around 250 kg (550 pounds). It is a decent for a basal thyreophoran.
Yuxisaurus lived around the Early Jurassic Period which was around 201 – 175 million years ago and that was super early. Stegosaurus existed around 155 – 145 million years ago in the Late Jurassic Period. Yuxisaurus existed another 25 million years before the Stegosaurus which is why finding the basal genus of any group is important and fascinating because it not only provides a glimpse into the early forms but how the evolution changed those animals in a period of time. Its early diversification is the reason why thyreophorans are found in many places of the world, if it did not take that opportunity, it may have only existed in select parts and a lot less genera of that group but the world at that time had no humans and the nature was unrivaled, so they took that opportunity and dinosaurs became the ruling group of animals for such a long time.
Media:
I had not known this before but Jurassic World: The Game and Jurassic World: Alive has the Yuxisaurus in both the games and this is how they look like.
Honestly, they look pretty good and pretty accurate to what was written in the papers. It does have a little more of a basal nodosauridae-kind of look but I guess it would be if comparing with 2 basal forms. But yeah, absolutely nice representation of this new and underrated dinosaur.
Merchandise:
Fortunately, Yuxisaurus does have one merchandise and it is because of that I decided to write this blog post about it or else it would have gone under my radar. Also for some reason, not a lot of new species that get the hype that some others get but I hope every dinosaur discovered gets some sort of hype. Either way, Mattel is making a new figure for Yuxisaurus for the Jurassic World: Rebirth line and it does look a little different than what the paleontologists have described it look like but not too different though.
The figure does look a lot more like your traditional nodosauridae body with a more ankylosauridae head which makes it have an odd look to it. They could have made the head look more like the Borealopelta they released a while back and made a little more skinnier and that would be it. Still, I will be buying it as soon as my eyes see it anywhere in the stores.
Thank you again for checking out this blog post and hope to see you again soon for the next dinosaur post. Do let me know down in the comments if there is any dinosaur that you would like me to cover.
References:
- Yao, Xi; Barrett, Paul; Yang, Lei; Xu, Xing; Bi, Shundong (2021-11-25). “A new early-branching armoured dinosaur from the Lower Jurassic of southwestern China”. bioRxiv: 1–43. doi:10.1101/2021.11.24.469951. S2CID244671198.
- Yao, X.; Barrett, P. M.; Lei, Y.; Xu, X.; Bi, S. (2022-03-15). “A new early-branching armoured dinosaur from the Lower Jurassic of southwestern China”. eLife. 11: e75248. doi:10.7554/eLife.75248. PMC8929930.
