Yizhousaurus
| Yizhousaurus Temporal range: Early Jurassic, | |
|---|---|
| Skull and jaw of the holotype | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Clade: | Dinosauria |
| Clade: | Saurischia |
| Clade: | †Sauropodomorpha |
| Clade: | †Sauropodiformes |
| Genus: | †Yizhousaurus Zhang et al., 2018 |
| Type species | |
| †Yizhousaurus sunae Zhang et al., 2018 | |
Yizhousaurus (meaning "Yizhou lizard", after the Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Region) is a genus of basal sauropodiform dinosaurs which existed in what is now Lufeng Formation, Yunnan Province of southern China during the lower Jurassic period. Identified from a nearly complete and exquisitely preserved skeleton, it is the most complete basal sauropod currently known with intact skull. Although its name was revealed in a 2010 Geological Society of America abstract by Sankar Chatterjee, T. Wang, S.G. Pan, Z. Dong, X.C. Wu, and Paul Upchurch, it wasn't validly named and described until 2018. The type species is Yizhousaurus sunae.