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Yinlong
 
 
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Yinlong (meaning "hidden dragon") is a genus
Genus

A genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the classification of living and fossil organisms. The taxonomic ranks are domain , kingdom , phylum, class , order , family , genus, and species....
 of basal
Basal (phylogenetics)

In phylogenetics, a basal clade is the earliest clade to branch in a larger clade; it appears at the base of a cladogram.A basal group form an outgroup to the rest of the clade, such as in the following example:...
 ceratopsia
Ceratopsia

Ceratopsia or Ceratopia is a group of herbivore, beaked dinosaurs which thrived in what are now North America and Asia, during the Cretaceous Period , although ancestral forms lived earlier, in the Jurassic....
n dinosaur
Dinosaur

Dinosaurs were the dominant vertebrate animals of Landform ecosystems for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic Period until the end of the Cretaceous Period , when most of them became extinct in the Cretaceous?Tertiary extinction event....
 from the Late Jurassic Period of central Asia
Central Asia

Central Asia is a region of Asia from the Caspian Sea in the west to central China in the east, and from southern Russia in the north to northern India in the south....
. It was a small, primarily biped
Biped

Bipedalism is a form of terrestrial locomotion where an organism Motion by means of its two rear limbs, or legs. An animal or machine that usually moves in a bipedal manner is known as a biped , meaning "two feet" ....
al herbivore
Herbivore

Herbivory is a form of predation in which an organism, known as an herbivore, heterotrophs principally autotrophs such as plants, algae and photosynthesizing bacteria....
, approximately 1.2 meters (4 ft) long. Yinlong is the oldest and most primitive ceratopsian known to science.

alition of American
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 and Chinese
People's Republic of China

The People's Republic of China , commonly known as China, is the largest country in East Asia and the List of countries by population in the world with over 1.3 billion people, approximately a fifth of the world's population....
 paleontologists, including Xu Xing
Xu Xing

Xu Xing is a famed China Paleontology who has named many dinosaurs, including the new Jurassic Ceratopsian Yinlong, the feathered relative of Tyrannosaurus Guanlong, the unusual Gigantoraptor, and the "sleeping dragon" Mei ....
, Catherine Forster, Jim Clark, and Mo Jinyou, described and named Yinlong in 2006.






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Encyclopedia


Yinlong (meaning "hidden dragon") is a genus
Genus

A genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the classification of living and fossil organisms. The taxonomic ranks are domain , kingdom , phylum, class , order , family , genus, and species....
 of basal
Basal (phylogenetics)

In phylogenetics, a basal clade is the earliest clade to branch in a larger clade; it appears at the base of a cladogram.A basal group form an outgroup to the rest of the clade, such as in the following example:...
 ceratopsia
Ceratopsia

Ceratopsia or Ceratopia is a group of herbivore, beaked dinosaurs which thrived in what are now North America and Asia, during the Cretaceous Period , although ancestral forms lived earlier, in the Jurassic....
n dinosaur
Dinosaur

Dinosaurs were the dominant vertebrate animals of Landform ecosystems for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic Period until the end of the Cretaceous Period , when most of them became extinct in the Cretaceous?Tertiary extinction event....
 from the Late Jurassic Period of central Asia
Central Asia

Central Asia is a region of Asia from the Caspian Sea in the west to central China in the east, and from southern Russia in the north to northern India in the south....
. It was a small, primarily biped
Biped

Bipedalism is a form of terrestrial locomotion where an organism Motion by means of its two rear limbs, or legs. An animal or machine that usually moves in a bipedal manner is known as a biped , meaning "two feet" ....
al herbivore
Herbivore

Herbivory is a form of predation in which an organism, known as an herbivore, heterotrophs principally autotrophs such as plants, algae and photosynthesizing bacteria....
, approximately 1.2 meters (4 ft) long. Yinlong is the oldest and most primitive ceratopsian known to science.

Discovery and Species

A coalition of American
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 and Chinese
People's Republic of China

The People's Republic of China , commonly known as China, is the largest country in East Asia and the List of countries by population in the world with over 1.3 billion people, approximately a fifth of the world's population....
 paleontologists, including Xu Xing
Xu Xing

Xu Xing is a famed China Paleontology who has named many dinosaurs, including the new Jurassic Ceratopsian Yinlong, the feathered relative of Tyrannosaurus Guanlong, the unusual Gigantoraptor, and the "sleeping dragon" Mei ....
, Catherine Forster, Jim Clark, and Mo Jinyou, described and named Yinlong in 2006. The generic name is derived from the Mandarin Chinese words ? (yin: "hidden") and ? (lóng: "dragon"), a reference to the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a Chinese-language film in the wuxia style, released in 2000. A China-Hong Kong-Taiwan-United States coproduction , the film was directed by Ang Lee and featured an international cast of Zhonghua minzu actors, including Chow Yun-Fat, Michelle Yeoh, Zhang Ziyi and Chang Chen....
, large portions of which were filmed in the western Chinese province of Xinjiang
Xinjiang

Xinjiang is an autonomous region of China of the People's Republic of China. It is a large, sparsely populated area, spanning over 1.6 million sq....
, near the locality where this animal's fossil
Fossil

Fossils are the preserved remains or trace fossil of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossiliferous Rock formations and sedimentary rock layers is known as the fossil record....
 remains were discovered. Long is the word most often used in the Chinese media when referring to dinosaurs, thus having been incorporated into several other Chinese dinosaur names (Dilong, Mei long and Guanlong
Guanlong

Guanlong was a genus of tyrannosauroid dinosaur, one of the earliest known examples of the lineage. About 3.0 metres long, it lived 160 million years ago in the Oxfordian stage of the Late Jurassic period, 92 million years before its well-known relative Tyrannosaurus....
).

Yinlong Species

  • Y. downsi (type)


The species
Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring....
 was named after the late Will Downs, a frequent participant in paleontological expeditions to China, who died the year before Yinlong was discovered.

The known fossil material of Yinlong consists of a single exceptionally well-preserved skeleton, complete with skull
Skull

The skull is a bone structure found in the head of many animals. The skull supports the structures of the face and protects the head against injury....
, of a nearly adult animal, found in 2004 in the Middle
Middle Jurassic

The Middle Jurassic, called the Dogger in the European system of classification, is the second epoch of the Jurassic Period . It lasted from 176-161 million years ago....
-Late Jurassic
Late Jurassic

The Late Jurassic Epoch of the Jurassic Period is the unit of geologic time scale from 161.2 ? 4.0 to 145.5 ? 4.0 million years ago, which is preserved in Upper Jurassic stratum....
 strata of the Shishugou Formation
Shishugou Formation

The Shishugou Formation is a geological Formation in Xinjiang, People's Republic of China, whose strata date back to the Late Jurassic period....
 located in Xinjiang Province, China. Yinlong was discovered in an upper section of this formation which dates to the Oxfordian stage
Oxfordian stage

The Oxfordian stage is the first faunal stage of the Late Jurassic epoch . It spans the time between 161.2 ? 4 annum and 155.7 ? 4 Ma .The stage takes its name from the city of Oxford in England....
 of the Late Jurassic, or approximately 161 to 156 million years ago. All other described ceratopsians are known from the later Cretaceous Period.

Classification

A small rostral bone
Rostral bone

The rostral bone is the edentulous dorsal component of the skeleton of the beak, unique to the ceratopsian dinosaurs....
 on the end of the upper jaw clearly identifies Yinlong as a ceratopsian, although the skull displays several features, especially the ornamentation of the squamosal
Squamosal

The squamosal is a bone of the head of higher vertebrates. It is the principal component of the cheek region in the skull, lying below the temporal series and otic notch and bounded anteriorly by postorbital....
 bone of the skull roof, which were previously thought to be unique to pachycephalosauria
Pachycephalosauria

Pachycephalosauria is a clade of ornithischian dinosaurs. Well-known genera include Pachycephalosaurus, Stegoceras, Stygimoloch, and Dracorex....
ns. The presence of these features in Yinlong indicates these as actual synapomorphies
Synapomorphy

In evolutionary biology, a synapomorphy is a derived character state shared by two or more terminal groups and inherited from their most recent common ancestor....
 (unique features) of the larger group Marginocephalia, which contains both the pachycephalosaurs and the ceratopsians, although these features have been lost in all known ceratopsians more derived
Derived

In phylogenetics, a trait is derived if it is present in an organism, but was absent in the last common ancestor of the group being considered. This may also refer to structures that are not present in an organism, but were present in its ancestors, i.e. traits that have undergone secondary loss....
 than Yinlong. The addition of these characters further strengthens the support for Marginocephalia. Yinlong also preserves skull features reminiscent of the family Heterodontosauridae
Heterodontosauridae

Heterodontosauridae is a family of early ornithischian dinosaurs that have often been considered Basal ornithopods, although recent studies suggest they may have been more closely related to marginocephalians....
, providing support for the hypothesis
Hypothesis

A hypothesis consists either of a suggested explanation for an observable phenomenon or of a reasoned proposal predicting a possible causal correlation among multiple phenomena....
 that heterodontosaurids are closely related to marginocephalians (Cooper, 1985; Zhao et al., 1999; You et al., 2003). The group containing Marginocephalia and Heterodontosauridae has been named Heterodontosauriformes
Heterodontosauriformes

Heterodontosauriformes are a group of herbivorous dinosaurs within the order Ornithischia. The taxon was named by Xu Xing et al in 2006 to group the suborder Marginocephalia with the family Heterodontosauridae , after the discovery of Yinlong revealed the two to be closely related....
 (Xu et al., 2006).

Diet

Yinlong was discovered with seven gastrolith
Gastrolith

Gastroliths are Rock , which are or have been held inside the Gastrointestinal tract of an animal. Among living vertebrates, gastroliths are common among Herbivore birds, crocodiles, alligators, seals and Sea Lion....
s preserved in the abdominal cavity. Gastroliths, stones stored in the digestive tract and used to grind plant material, are also found in other ceratopsians such as Psittacosaurus
Psittacosaurus

Psittacosaurus is a genus of psittacosaurid ceratopsian dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous Period of what is now Asia, about 130 to 100 million years ago....
, and are also widely distributed in most other dinosaur groups, as well as in many types of bird
Bird

Birds are wing, Bipedalismal, endothermic , vertebrate animals that lay egg . There are around 10,000 living species, making them the most numerous tetrapod vertebrates....
s.

In popular culture

Yinlong made its first appearance in popular culture on the National Geographic Channel documentary "Dino Death Trap" as a prey item of Guanlong
Guanlong

Guanlong was a genus of tyrannosauroid dinosaur, one of the earliest known examples of the lineage. About 3.0 metres long, it lived 160 million years ago in the Oxfordian stage of the Late Jurassic period, 92 million years before its well-known relative Tyrannosaurus....
. The documentary called Yinlong "a little ancestor of the giant dinosaurs like Triceratops
Triceratops

Triceratops is an extinct genus of herbivore Ceratopsidae dinosaur which lived during the Maastrichtian stage of the Late Cretaceous Period , around 68 to 65 mya in what is now North America....
", while contrasting the shape of Yinlongs head to those of the later ceratopsian. The documentary highlighted the importance of the find, and stated that the fossil remains "give a snap-shot of dinosaur evolution".

External links

  • , featuring a link to the original paper, pictures, and a press release on the discovery of Yinlong (site operated by George Washington University
    George Washington University

    The George Washington University is a Private university, Mixed-sex education university located in Washington, D.C. The school was chartered on February 9, 1821 as The Columbian College in the District of Columbia by an Act of Congress and since that time has developed into a nonsectarian research institution....
    )