Lukousaurus

Lukousaurus Temporal range: Early Jurassic, 196.5–189.5 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N Sinemurian
Skull
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Clade:	Archosauromorpha
Genus:	†Lukousaurus Young, 1940
Species:	†L. yini
Binomial name
†Lukousaurus yini Young, 1940

Lukousaurus is an archosauromorph based on most of a small skull's snout, displaying distinctive lachrymal horns, found in the Early Jurassic-age Lower Lufeng Formation, Yunnan, China and was described by Chung Chien Young in 1940.^[1] The generic name refers to the Lugou Bridge, lit. “crossroads”, near Beijing, where the Sino-Japanese War started.^[1] L. yini is tentatively classified as a theropod dinosaur by some allied to ceratosaurs, by others a coelurosaur. Its skull is rather robust for its size though the teeth were described by the author as typically theropodan. It may, however, be a crurotarsan or a primitive crocodilian.^[2] Whatever Lukousaurus was, it was definitely an archosauromorph.^[3]

In either the late 1930s or in 1940, the front half of a fossilized skull, which became the holotype of Lukousaurus yini, was discovered in , China.^[1]

References[]

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