“Related to the T-Rex, but smaller, faster, and more agile.”
Xiongguanlong Facts
- Only one skeleton has ever been found. It was unearthed in China.
- Xiongguanlong was a medium-sized dinosaur related to the T-Rex and the velociraptor.
- It was well-adapted to run down fast prey and kill and eat it with razor-sharp teeth.
Xiongguanlong Scientific name
This dinosaur’s scientific name is Xiongguanlong baimoensis. It comes from where the fossil remains were first found: Xiagou Formation in China. The word “long” is the Chinese word for “dragon.” So its name roughly means “Xiagou Dragon,” which, when you think about it, has a pretty nice ninja vibe to it.
Description & Size
The Xiongguanlong was a medium-sized carnivore classified as a Tyrannosaurid, making it a relative of the T. Rex and velociraptor. It lived about 85 million years ago in what is known as the Late Cretaceous. It had a long narrow skull with fierce-looking crests and ridges on it. It also delivered a powerful bite with sharp curved teeth. The shape of them was ideal not only for killing but for slicing and dicing its prey into manageable chunks for dinner.
Xiongguanlong was about 30 feet long, about the distance of two parked cars, and weight 660 lbs, about like a vending machine. (Incidentally, stats show that 2 people a year are killed by falling vending machines, not to mention the bad health effects of junk food, so stay away from those things!) Tyrannosaurids may even have had feathers to make them look even bigger. It was a fast runner, getting up to 45 miles an hour when it was well-motivated.
Xiongguanlong Evolution and History
Xiongguanlong is classified as a tyrannosauroid. These big carnivores evolved first in the late Jurassic period and became apex predators in the Late Cretaceous, around 85 million years ago. It has a mixture of characteristics of earlier and later species that make paleontologists think of it as a transitional species between early and later tyrannosaurids.
Diet – What Did the Xiongguanlong Eat?
Xiongguanlong was a carnivore that would have eaten any prey in its ecosystem that it could kill, or carcasses of larger animals that had already died. It could have hunted herbivorous hadrosaurs and ceratopsians, as well as smaller animals like lizards and mammals—the ancestors of humans.
Habitat – When and Where It lived
The Xiongguanlong lived approximately 85 million years ago, in the Late Cretaceous period. Some other dinosaurs that lived at the same time were tyrannosaurids, hadrosaurs, and ceratopsians. The climate was warm and humid. This creature would have been adaptable to forests, grasslands, and swamps.
Threats And Predators
While not the biggest tyrannosaurid, this animal was large and vicious, so probably no other animal hunted it specifically as a preferred prey. But in the long term, these advantages didn’t help the Xiongguanlong any more so than any other species in surviving existential threats like climate change, natural disasters, and evolutionary changes in other creatures that left them less competitive.
Discoveries and Fossils – Where It was Found
The Xiongguanlong was discovered in the Xiongguan Formation in the Gansu province of China. A lot of fossil species have been found in the area, many of which are unique in the world. For the Xiongguanlong, researchers found a partial skull and other bones that gave them enough to go on to figure out what the animal looked like based on similar finds of other species.
Extinction – When Did It Die Out?
During the Late Cretaceous, the earth’s climate was changing quite a bit. There was a major mass extinction event at the end of the period that wiped out a large number of species, including dinosaurs. That’s the best guess of when the Xiongguanlong also went extinct.
Similar Animals to the Xiongguanlong
- Albertosaurus: a species similar to tyrannosaurus rex. It lived during the late Cretaceous period in western North America.
- Daspletosaurus: a species very similiar to the xiongguanlong. It is thought to be a direct ancestor of tyrannosaurus rex.
- Alioramus: a medium-sized tyrannosaurid that lived during the Late Cretaceous period. It had a more slender skull and longer, narrower teeth.
Related Animals
Sources
- Prehistoric Wildlife / Accessed December 26, 2022
- Wikipedia.com / Accessed December 26, 2022
- Dinochecker / Accessed December 26, 2022
- Australian Museum / Accessed December 26, 2022
- Smithsonian Magazine / Accessed December 26, 2022
