#datai

so... that new paper title hey...

(Skulls of Datai yinliangis, from Xing et al., 2024)

Meaning of name: Datai = combination of select characters from the Chinese phrases for "to understand" and "stable"; yinliangis = for the Yingliang Group [stone company that operates the Yingliang Stone Natural History Museum, where the original fossils are housed]

Age: Late Cretaceous (Turonian–Coniacian), between 90–96 million years ago

Where found: Zhoutian Formation, Jiangxi, China

How much is known: Partial skeletons of two individuals, both primarily known from the front half of the body.

Notes: Datai was an ankylosaurine ankylosaur, a group of armored dinosaurs known for their distinctive tail club. It is unique among ankylosaurs in having a pair of small horns protruding from either side of its face. It is also known to have had a large number of small bony nodules forming chainmail-like armor on its throat, a feature that has been found in some other ankylosaurs but is often not preserved.

The two known specimens of Datai both represent juvenile individuals, and were found with the head of one resting on top of the other's. Groups of juveniles have also been found preserved together in another ankylosaurine, Pinacosaurus from the Late Cretaceous of Mongolia and China, which may suggest that social behavior was widespread in juvenile ankylosaurs.

Datai is the first dinosaur (and vertebrate of any sort) to be reported from the Zhoutian Formation based on skeletal remains. Previously described dinosaur fossils from this rock unit have been limited to eggshells.