Tanius

Tanius is a genus of hadrosauroid dinosaur. It lived in the Late Cretaceous of China. The type species, named and described in 1929 by Carl Wiman, is Tanius sinensis. The generic name honours the Chinese paleontologist Tan Xichou. The specific epithet refers to China. In 2010 Gregory S. Paul estimated the length of Tanius at 7 metres (23 ft) and its weight at 2 metric tons.

Tanius

FunkMonk · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
HadrosauroideaPBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Ornithopoda
Life habit
ground dwelling, gregariousPBDB, for Ornithischia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Ornithischia
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Ornithischia

Time the record covers

At most 18 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 89.8 Mya and 72.2 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Late Cretaceous — about 5 of 5 occurrencesLate Cretaceous90–90 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences90–89 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences89–88 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences88–88 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences88–87 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences87–87 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences87–86 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences86–85 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences85–85 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences85–84 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences84–83 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences83–83 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences83–82 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences82–82 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences82–81 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences81–80 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences80–80 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences80–79 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences79–79 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences79–78 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences78–77 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences77–77 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences77–76 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences76–75 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences75–75 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences75–74 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences74–74 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences74–73 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences73–72 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences72–72 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences90.3 Mya71.7 Mya

5 occurrences of Tanius on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. 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

5 occurrences

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

2 formations

Jingangkou — 36.89°N, 120.66°EJingangkou — 36.60°N, 120.77°EJiangjunding — 36.92°N, 120.62°E

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The named rock units Tanius has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Tanius and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Tanius and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

16 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Tanius, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

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

Each of the 5 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Tanius

Credit
FunkMonk
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Tanius 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

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 itHadrosauroidea through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Wiman 1929