''Daanosaurus'' (meaning "Da'an lizard" after Da'an district in

Zigong Zigong (, ), formed by the merger of the two former towns of Ziliujing (Tzuliuching, literally "self-flow well") and Gongjing (Kungching, literally "offering well"), is a prefecture-level city in Sichuan, southwestern China. Demographics Accord ...

Sichuan Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...

) was a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...

. It was a

sauropod Sauropoda (), whose members are known as sauropods (; from '' sauro-'' + '' -pod'', 'lizard-footed'), is a clade of saurischian ('lizard-hipped') dinosaurs. Sauropods had very long necks, long tails, small heads (relative to the rest of their bo ...

which lived during the Late

Jurassic The Jurassic ( ) is a Geological period, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately Mya. The J ...

( Oxfordian -

Tithonian In the geological timescale, the Tithonian is the latest age of the Late Jurassic Epoch and the uppermost stage of the Upper Jurassic Series. It spans the time between 152.1 ± 4 Ma and 145.0 ± 4 Ma (million years ago). It is preceded by the K ...

stage, about 163 - 145 mya). It lived in what is now

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

(

Province), and was similar to ''

Bellusaurus ''Bellusaurus'' (meaning "Beautiful lizard", from Vulgar Latin ''bellus'' 'beautiful' ( masculine form) and Ancient Greek ''sauros'' 'lizard') was a small short-necked sauropod dinosaur from the Middle Jurassic which measured about long. Its f ...

''.Brachiosauridae at Mikko's Phylogeny Archive
When it was described, ''Daanosaurus'' was placed in the Bellusaurinae, a sub-family of

Brachiosauridae The Brachiosauridae ("arm lizards", from Greek ''brachion'' (βραχίων) = "arm" and ''sauros'' = "lizard") are a family or clade of herbivorous, quadrupedal sauropod dinosaurs. Brachiosaurids had long necks that enabled them to access the ...

that Dong Zhiming had raised in 1990 to house ''

'', or the Klamelisauridae (also now merged with Brachiosauridae), used to house ''

Klamelisaurus ''Klamelisaurus'' (meaning " Kelameili Mountains lizard") is a genus of herbivorous sauropod dinosaur from the Middle Jurassic Shishugou Formation of China. The type species is ''Klamelisaurus gobiensis'', which was named by Zhao Xijin in 1993 ...

'' and possibly also ''Daanosaurus'' and ''

Abrosaurus ''Abrosaurus'' (; 'delicate lizard' from the Greek ' meaning 'delicate' or 'dainty' and meaning 'lizard') is a genus of macronarian sauropod dinosaur from the Middle Jurassic Period of what is now Asia, one of many dinosaurs found at the Dasha ...

''. More recently, other authors have placed ''Daanosaurus'' in the

Eusauropoda Eusauropoda (meaning "true sauropods") is a derived clade of sauropod dinosaurs. Eusauropods represent the node-based group that includes all descendant sauropods starting with the basal eusauropods of ''Shunosaurus'', and possibly ''Barapasaur ...

, potentially the Macronaria, but one hypothesis is that it is a mamenchisaurid. Bellusaurus-v1

The

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...

from the

Shaximiao Formation The Shaximiao Formation () is a Middle Jurassic, Middle to Late Jurassic aged geological formation in Sichuan, China, most notable for the wealth of dinosaurs fossils that have been excavated from its strata. The Shaximiao Formation is exposed in ...

was described in 2005 as ''Daanosaurus zhangi''. Adult size is unknown due to a lack of fossil remains. The

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several ...

(ZDM 0193), which is the only known specimen, was a juvenile.

References

Brachiosaurs Kimmeridgian life Late Jurassic dinosaurs of Asia Jurassic China Fossils of China Fossil taxa described in 2005 Paleontology in Sichuan {{Jurassic-reptile-stub