Tanius

Tanius was a large, plant-eating ornithopod that inhabited eastern China during the Late Cretaceous epoch. Named in honour of Chinese geologist Tan Xichou, who collected its initial remains in Shandong Province, the genus is known from partial skulls and backbones. Growing up to nine metres long, Tanius was a sizable animal comparable in stature to many of the true duck-billed dinosaurs that shared its landscape. Its jaws were filled with dense dental batteries capable of grinding tough Cretaceous plants such as conifers, cycads, and flowering shrubs. While historically grouped with flat-headed hadrosaurines, anatomical restudies suggest it represents an advanced non-hadrosaurid hadrosauroid that persisted alongside genuine hadrosaurids.

Historically classified as a flat-headed hadrosaurid, modern analyses place Tanius just outside the true hadrosaurid crown.

Where and when

Tanius lived in the Late Cretaceous, from 73 to 70 million years ago (Campanian age). Its remains come from China, in the Jiangjunding Formation.

The numbers

Length 8 m (estimates run from 7 to 9 m). Mass about 2.4 t. Hip height about 2.5 m. That is 4.7 human-lengths, or 0.71 of a double-decker bus. These are estimates from partial skeleton; fields marked estimated by the site are length, mass, first ma, last ma, hip height.

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