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QIUPALONG
(kwe-pa-long)
meaning: "Qiupa dragon - after the Qiupa Formation"
Qiupalong
Named By: Li Xu, Yoshitsugu Kobayashi, Junchang Lu, YuonginNam Lee, Yongqing Liu, Kohei Tanaka, Xingliao Zhang, Songhai Jia and Jiming Zhang in 2011
Time Period: Late Cretaceous, 76.5 Ma
Location: China, Henan Province - Qiupa Formation
Size: Uncertain due to incomplete remains
Diet: Uncertain but possible omnivore
Fossil(s): Partial skeleton
Classification: | Chordata | Reptilia | Dinosauria | Saurischia | Theropoda | Ornithomimidae |
About

Qiupalong is a genus of extinct ornithomimid theropods from the Late Cretaceous of what is now China and Canada.

The type specimen, holotype HGM 41HIII-0106, preserves partial hips and hindlimbs, and was named and described in 2011. The team describing it, Xu et al., found it to represent a new taxon, which they gave the binomial Qiupalong henanensis. The genus name comes from the Qiupa Formation, where the specimen comes from, and the Chinese word long, meaning "dragon". The specific epithet is derived from the taxon's occurrence in the Henan Province. Qiupalong is from the late Late Cretaceous, based on the age of the Qiupa Formation. Qiupalong is the first definitive Asian ornithomimid from outside of the Gobi Desert and is the southern-most occurrence of Late Cretaceous Ornithomimidae from eastern Asia. Additional specimens, which include vertebrae, forelimbs, hips, hindlimbs, were later described in 2017 from the Belly River Group of Alberta, Canada. They were referred to Qiupalong sp., given that they occurred up to 10 million years before the type material of Qiupalong. These finds suggest that Qiupalong radiated to Asia from Canada.

Read more about Qiupalong at Wikipedia
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