Yinlong

Yinlong was a genus of basal ceratopsian dinosaur from the Late Jurassic period of Central Asia. It was discovered during the Oxfordian and Kimmeridgian stages of the Late Jurassic Epoch in rock deposits dating from 159 to 154 million years ago. It was known to be the earliest undisputed ceratopsian dinosaur and the most primitive dinosaur described from the Jurassic period. The name means "hidden dragon," in reference to the location of the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). It was named after the American vertebrate paleontologist William R. Downs III.

Yinlong was a relatively small dinosaur and shared many characteristics with Heterodontosaurus. In addition, it had long, stout hind limbs and shorter, slender forelimbs. It has three toes suggesting that it lived a bipedal lifestyle like many small ornithopods. It was an unadorned skull with no horns; however, Yinlong was a ceratopsian with snouts with beaks for crop vegetation. The skull was deep and broad and relatively large compared to most ornithopods, but proportionally smaller than most other ceratopsians.

The Yinlong was herbivorous and measured a total length of about 1.2 meters from nose to tail, and weighed about 15 kilograms.