| Leshansaurus | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Skull reconstruction showing known material (white and light grey) | |
Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Clade: | Dinosauria |
| Clade: | Saurischia |
| Clade: | Theropoda |
| Family: | †Megalosauridae |
| Subfamily: | †Afrovenatorinae |
| Genus: | †Leshansaurus Liet al.,2009 |
| Type species | |
| †Leshansaurus qianweiensis Liet al., 2009 | |
Leshansaurus is agenus oftheropoddinosaur from theLate JurassicShaximiao Formation of what is now China. It was described in 2009 by a team of Chinese paleontologists. Thetype species isLeshansaurus qianweiensis. Fossils ofLeshansaurus were discovered in strata from theShangshaximiao Formation, a formation rich in dinosaur fossils. Liet al. referred thistaxon toSinraptoridae – a group ofcarnosaurian theropods,[1] but it may belong toMegalosauridae instead.[2]
Theholotype (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 theparatype.
Leshansaurus qianweiensis was named and described in 2009 byLi Fei,Peng Guangzhao,Ye Yong,Jiang Shan, andHuang Daxi. The generic name refers toLeshan, a nearby city inSichuan,China, and the specific epithet refers toQianwei, the county in which the fossils were found.
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. Itsautapomorphies (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, slenderbasipterygoid projections on thebasisphenoid, 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.
The describers placedLeshansaurus in theSinraptoridae, but they did not carry out acladistic analysis. An analysis byMatthew Carrano in 2012 found it to be a member of themegalosauridAfrovenatorinae, assister species ofPiveteausaurus, ataxon known only from a braincase nearly identical to that ofLeshansaurus. The phylogenetic position ofLeshansaurus according to Carranoet al. (2012) is shown by this cladogram:[3]
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