Yingshanosaurus

Yingshanosaurus (meaning "Yingshan or Golden Hills reptile") is a genus of stegosaurian dinosaur from the Late Jurassic, around 155 million years ago. It was a herbivore that lived in what is now China. The type species is Yingshanosaurus jichuanensis.

In 1983, a stegosaurian skeleton was excavated in Sichuan by team led by Wan Jihou. In 1984, the find was reported by Zhou Shiwu. In 1985, Zhou used the name Yingshanosaurus jichuanensis during a paleontological congress in Toulouse. Though his lecture was published in 1986, it was assumed that the name remained a nomen nudum due to an insufficient description. In 1994 however, Zhu Songlin fully described the animal. This fact escaped most Western researchers who considered the taxon invalid until well into the twenty-first century. The generic name is derived from the county of Yingshan. The specific name refers to the location of the site, Jichuan.

The holotype, CV OO722, was found in a layer of the late Upper Shaximiao Formation, probably dating from the early Kimmeridgian. It consists of a partial skeleton including a fragmentary skull, of an adult individual. It contains a number of individual dorsal vertebrae, a series of dorsal vertebrae found in articulation with the sacrum and pelvis, seven tail vertebrae, ribs, seven chevrons, a left scapulocoracoid, a left humerus, a left radius, a left second metacarpal, a left thighbone, a left shinbone, a left fibula, metacarpals, a phalanx, several back plates and a left shoulder spine. The main lacking parts are the neck and the tail end. The skull bones found are so fragmentary that they provide little relevant information. A 2006 paper by Susannah Maidment states that the only fossil specimen could not be located.