Yunnanosaurus was an extinct genus of sauropodomorph dinosaur that lived in present-day Yunnan Province, China, approximately 201-168 million years ago. It is known to have been the last prosauropod living in the Middle Jurassic. The first skeletons of Yunnanosaurus were discovered by Yang Zhongjian (also known as C. C. Young) in the Lufeng Formation of Yunnan, China. It is named after the province of Yunnan in the People's Republic of China. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a herbivorous dinosaur that crawled through the fern vegetation of southern China. It had a long neck and stood on four legs or could also walk bipedally. The teeth of Yunnanosaurus were different from those of its prosauropod relatives; it had more than 60 spoon-shaped teeth that were sharpened by grinding against each other as the animal fed. And its prosauropod relatives had blade-shaped teeth that wore down against the food being chewed. Yunnanosaurus was known to be the dominant plant eater of the Middle and Late Jurassic because of its advanced dentition, which probably evolved separately because the rest of its anatomy was unlike that of the sauropods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a large, moderately built, ground-dwelling dinosaur, ranging in size from 7 m in length and 2 m in height, up to 4 m in the largest species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n