Bienosaurus (meaning "Boien's lizard) is a nomen dubium genus of dinosaur from the Early Jurassic (probably Hettangian to Sinemurian) Lower Lufeng Formation of Yunnan Province in China.
Discovery and species
The Lufeng Basin in
China has been a location for the collection of
Early Jurassic dinosaurs since 1938. In 1938 and 1939 Chinese paleontologist Mei Nien Bien collected material from the Dark Red Beds of the lower
Lufeng Formation that included the nearly complete jaw and partial skull of a relative of the armored dinosaur
Scelidosaurus, though it was not described as such until 2001. In 2001, Chinese paleontologist
Dong Zhiming described this specimen, IVPP V 9612, as a new member of the family
Scelidosauridae,
Bienosaurus lufengensis. The
genus name is in honor of the collector Bien and combines with it the
Ancient Greek word σαυρος (
sauros) for "lizard", while the specific name is for the Lufeng Basin where the
holotype skull was found.
The species name was originally going to honor
Michael Crichton, author of
Jurassic Park, as "Bienosaurus crichtoni".
As it comes from the lower Lufeng Formation,
Bienosaurus would be one of the earliest known
, living in the
Hettangian to
Sinemurian of the Early Jurassic.
Bienosaurus was revisited by British paleontologists Thomas Raven, Paul Barrett, Susannah Maidment and Chinese paleontologist Xu Xing in 2019. They noted that the holotype number given by Dong, IVPP V 9612, was already in use for the holotype of Sinornithoides, and that Bienosaurus had been reassigned the specimen number IVPP V15311 instead. As well, due to the incomplete and fragmentary nature of the material, it could not be distinguished from other thyreophorans and was thus nomen dubium, with the possibility that it could represent the same taxon as Tatisaurus from the same formation. It does show anatomy typical of an early thyreophoran like Scelidosaurus, but no unique features to support Scelidosauridae.
Phylogeny
Dong in 2001 placed
Bienosaurus in the
Scelidosauridae, considering these to be part of the
Ankylosauria. Later publications suggested a general position basal in the
Thyreophora. In 2019 a study confirmed this, concluding
Bienosaurus was a
nomen dubium, possibly identical to
Tatisaurus from the same formation.
