| Tatisaurus | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Jaw | |
Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Clade: | Dinosauria |
| Clade: | †Ornithischia |
| Clade: | †Thyreophora |
| Genus: | †Tatisaurus Simmons, 1965 |
| Species: | †T. oehleri |
| Binomial name | |
| †Tatisaurus oehleri Simmons, 1965 | |
| Synonyms | |
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Tatisaurus is agenus ofornithischiandinosaur from the EarlyJurassic from theLower Lufeng Formation inYunnan Province inChina. Little is known as the remains are fragmentary.[1] The type species isT. oehleri.
In 1948 and 1949 Father Edgar Oehler, a Catholic priest working for theFu Jen Catholic University atBeijing, excavated fossils near the village of Da Di in Yunnan. Among them was the jaw bone of a herbivorous dinosaur. In 1965David Jay Simmons named and described it as thetype speciesTatisaurus oehleri. The generic name is derived from Da Di, then more usually spelled as "Ta Ti". Thespecific name honours Oehler.[2] Theholotype,FMNH CUP 2088, was found in the Zhangjiawa Beds of theLufeng Formation, dating from theSinemurian. It consists of a partial left mandible with teeth. The lower jaw bone fragment is, lacking the tip, six centimetres long. The teeth are eroded. It is the only specimen known of the species.
Simmons assignedTatisaurus to theHypsilophodontidae, though this group was seen by him as anevolutionary grade of "primitive" Ornithopoda, ancestral to several ornithischian groups. He felt thatTatisaurus' affinities were withScelidosaurus or theAnkylosauria. Later, in 1990, the specimen was reviewed byDong Zhiming, who noted it had similarities withHuayangosaurus. He placed the two genera in the same subfamily, the Huayangosaurinae, within theStegosauria.[3]
Later still, in 1996,Spencer Lucas reclassifiedTatisaurus oehleri as a species ofScelidosaurus,S. oehleri, in order to useScelidosaurus for abiochron.[4] In 2007,David B. Norman and colleagues regarded this as unfounded. They instead foundTatisaurus to be adubiousbasalthyreophoran, showing a single thyreophoreansynapomorphy; a ventrally deflected mesial end of thedentary. If considered a thyreophoran, it would be one of the oldest known members of the group.[5]
In 2019 a study concluded thatBienosaurus was anomen dubium, possibly identical toTatisaurus from the same formation.[6]
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