Chilantaisaurus

Common card · No. 497761

Chilantaisaurus ("Jilantai Salt Lake lizard") is an extinct genus of large theropod dinosaur that lived in present-day China during the Late Cretaceous period. It was described by Chinese paleontologist Hu Show-Yung in 1964. The genus contains a single valid species, C. tashuikouensis, though several other species have been assigned to the genus. C. tashuikouensis is known from a single, incomplete postcranial skeleton, the holotype specimen. This specimen was found by a joint Sino-Soviet expedition to Inner Mongolia in rock layers coming from the Ulansuhai Formation. These rock layers are thought to date to the Santonian or Campanian stages of the Cretaceous period, around 85.7 to 72.2 million years ago. However, the age of the Ulansuhai Formation is debated. Chilantaisaurus was around 11 metres (36 ft) in length and weighed 2.5–4 metric tons (2.8–4.4 short tons). This makes it among the largest known theropod genera, comparable to Tyrannosaurus. The forelimbs of Chilantaisaurus are only...

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