Fuyuansaurus
| Fuyuansaurus Temporal range: Middle Triassic, | |
|---|---|
| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Clade: | Archosauromorpha |
| Family: | †Trachelosauridae (?) |
| Genus: | †Fuyuansaurus Fraser et al., 2013 |
| Type species | |
| †Fuyuansaurus acutirostris Fraser et al., 2013 | |
Fuyuansaurus is an extinct genus of "protorosaur" reptiles (probably part of Tanystropheidae) known from the Middle Triassic (Ladinian stage) Zhuganpo Formation of southern China. Fuyuansaurus was first named by Nicholas C. Fraser, Olivier Rieppel and Li Chun in 2013 and the type species is Fuyuansaurus acutirostris.
This genus is known from a single partial skeleton, IVPP V17983. This skeleton includes part of the skull, most of the neck, and portions of the trunk, shoulder girdle, and hip. Fuyuansaurus can be distinguished from other "protorosaurs" by its elongated and slender snout. Like Tanystropheus, it possessed an elongated neck, but it differs from most tanystropheids in the structure of its hip. Nevertheless, Ezcurra and Butler classified it as a tanystropheid in 2018, as did Spiekman et al. in 2021.