Lukousaurus yini
Lukousaurus is an extinct genus of archosauromorph based on most of a small snout, displaying distinctive lacrimal horns, found in the Early Jurassic lower Lufeng Formation of Yunnan, China. It was described by Chung Chien Young in 1940.

Ghedoghedo · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- LukousaurusPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Pseudosuchia
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Diapsida
Time the record covers
At most 8.5 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 201.4 Mya and 192.9 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
4 occurrences of Lukousaurus yini on record, most of them in the Early Jurassic. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
4 occurrences- Early Jurassic100%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
1 formation
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The named rock units Lukousaurus yini has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Lukousaurus yini and its relatives
Early JurassicWhere Lukousaurus yini and its relatives were recorded in the Early Jurassic.
Found in the same rock
27 taxa- Gyposaurus sinensis4 sites
- Lufengosaurus huenei4 sites
- Lufengosaurus magnus4 sites
- Sinosaurus triassicus4 sites
- Yunnanosaurus huangi4 sites
- Bienotherium yunnanense2 sites
- Yunnanosaurus robustus2 sites
- Archosauria1 site
- Bienotherium magnum1 site
- Bienotherium minor1 site
- Clevosaurus1 site
- Coelophysoidea1 site
- Crocodyliformes1 site
- Kunminia minima1 site
- Lufengia delicata1 site
- Lufengosaurus1 site
- Massopoda1 site
- Morganucodon heikuopengensis1 site
- Oligokyphus lufengensis1 site
- Panguraptor lufengensis1 site
- Phytosauria1 site
- Platyognathus hsui1 site
- Sauropodomorpha1 site
- Sinoconodon rigneyi1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Lukousaurus yini, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
3 references- On two new saurischians from Lufeng, China2
- The non-therapsid reptiles of the Lufeng Basin, Yunnan, China1
- The Lufeng saurischian fauna in China1
Each of the 4 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Lukousaurus yini
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Ghedoghedo
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Lukousaurus yini was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Lukousaurus”
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itLukousaurus through timeFormations of the Early JurassicThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Young 1940