Gigantspinosaurus

Chapter • Meet the dinosaur

Overview

Gigantspinosaurus was a comparatively small stegosaur, reaching around 4.2–5 metres in length and weighing somewhere between roughly half a tonne and 1.5 tonnes. Its body followed the familiar stegosaurian plan: a barrel-shaped trunk, four sturdy legs with the forelimbs distinctly shorter than the hindlimbs, a small head carried low to the ground, and a stiffened tail held clear of the ground rather than dragged. What makes the animal instantly recognisable, however, is not the plates along its back — those were unusually small and thin — but its enormous shoulder spines. Each parascapular spine sat over the shoulder blade, had a broad flattened base and tapered into a point longer than the scapula itself. No other known thyreophoran carries shoulder armour so oversized relative to its body.

Chapter • Where it lived

Habitat

Gigantspinosaurus lived in the Late Jurassic, roughly 163–157 million years ago, in what is now Sichuan Province in southern China. Every known specimen comes from the Upper Shaximiao Formation near the city of Zigong. The landscape was a broad, low-lying floodplain crossed by meandering rivers and dotted with lakes and stands of conifers, ginkgoes, cycads and ferns. The climate was warm and humid with pronounced wet seasons. The Zigong area has yielded thousands of dinosaur bones and today houses the Zigong Dinosaur Museum, built directly over the fossil bed itself.

Chapter • Wild behavior

Behavior & Ecology

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Chapter • Scientific place

Taxonomy