Leshansaurus

Leshansaurus Temporal range: Late Jurassic, 161.2–155.7 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
Skull reconstruction showing known material (white and light grey)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Clade:	Dinosauria
Clade:	Saurischia
Clade:	Theropoda
Family:	†Megalosauridae
Subfamily:	†Afrovenatorinae
Genus:	†Leshansaurus Li et al., 2009
Type species
†Leshansaurus qianweiensis Li et al., 2009

Leshansaurus is a genus of theropod dinosaur from the Late Jurassic Shaximiao Formation of what is now China. It was described in 2009 by a team of Chinese paleontologists. The type species is Leshansaurus qianweiensis. Fossils of Leshansaurus were discovered in strata from the Shangshaximiao Formation, a formation rich in dinosaur fossils. Li et al. referred this taxon to Sinraptoridae – a group of carnosaurian theropods,^[1] but it may belong to Megalosauridae instead.^[2]

Discovery and naming[]

Size of Leshansaurus qianweiensis

The holotype (QW 200701) was found in 2007. It is a fairly complete skeleton consisting of a partial skull and lower jaws, seven cervical vertebrae, twelve dorsal vertebrae, five sacral vertebrae, two caudal vertebrae, and much of the hind limbs and hands. A second specimen (QW 200702), an isolated femur from a juvenile, has been designated as the paratype.

Leshansaurus qianweiensis was named and described in 2009 by , , , , and . The generic name refers to Leshan, a nearby city in Sichuan, China, and the specific epithet refers to Qianwei, the county in which the fossils were found.

Description[]

Leshansaurus was a medium-sized theropod that would have had a length of six to seven meters, and a hip height of about one and a half meters.

Leshansaurus has an elongated skull that is broader towards the front. The femur has a length of 62 centimeters, and the tibia has a length of 52 centimeters. Its autapomorphies (unique characteristics) are the possession of a sharp central ridge on the supraoccipital (the bone above the occipital), elongated frontal bones that are 2.86 times as long as they are wide, slender projections on the , a bone of the lower braincase, an atlas intercentrum that is horseshoe-shaped in cross-section, slender diapophyses, thin spines of the dorsal vertebrae and sacral vertebrae, the possession of a clear keel at the bottom of the sacral vertebrae, and an ilium with on the inner side a distinct ridge along the edge of the hip joint.

Phylogeny[]

The describers placed Leshansaurus in the Sinraptoridae, but they did not carry out a cladistic analysis. An analysis by in 2012 found it to be a member of the megalosaurid Afrovenatorinae, as sister species of Piveteausaurus, a taxon known only from a braincase nearly identical to that of Leshansaurus. The phylogenetic position of Leshansaurus according to Carrano et al. (2012) is shown by this cladogram:^[3]

References[]