Tuojiangosaurus facts for kids
Tuojiangosaurus was an amazing armoured dinosaur that lived about 150 million years ago. This was during the Late Jurassic period.
This dinosaur's name means "Tuo River lizard," named after the Tuo River in Szechuan, China, where its fossils were found. Long ago, people in China would sometimes find old bones and think they were from mythical dragons. They even sold these "dragon bones" for medicine! It's very likely that some of these bones were actually from Tuojiangosaurus.
Tuojiangosaurus wasn't a dragon, but it was certainly a powerful dinosaur. It was a plant-eater, but it had incredible protection. Imagine a dinosaur with 17 pairs of spiky plates running down its back and tail! These plates helped keep it safe from predators. It also had a set of sharp spikes at the end of its tail, which made it even more dangerous to anything that tried to attack it. With a quick swing of its spiked tail, Tuojiangosaurus could defend itself very well.
The area in China where Tuojiangosaurus was discovered is now home to the Zigong Dinosaur Park. This is a very special place because it was the first dinosaur museum ever built in Asia!
Images for kids
-
A restoration showing what Tuojiangosaurus might have looked like.
-
The skull of a Tuojiangosaurus skeleton display.
-
A mounted skeleton of Tuojiangosaurus at the Beijing Museum of Natural History, facing a Yangchuanosaurus.
See also
In Spanish: Tuojiangosaurus multispinus para niños
