Amazing 50-Foot Dragon Discovered By Chinese Farmers

Paleontologists in Hong Kong have discovered a 50-foot “dragon” dinosaur species in China that existed 160 million years ago.

CNN.com reports:

The long skeleton was found in 2006 by farmers digging for a fish pond in Qijiang city in the southwestern Chongqing province.

Lida Xing, a member of the research team from the University of Alberta who made the discovery, told CNN it was named Qijianglong, the “dragon of Qijiang” because farmers thought the bones resembled the shape of Chinese mythical dragons.

“We found the dinosaur’s huge vertebrae with the skull and the tail, but couldn’t find any bones from the hands or the legs. So the locals began to say the long body looked just like a dragon from ancient Chinese stories,” said Xing.

The findings, published earlier this week in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, show that the new species belongs to a group of dinosaurs called mamenchisaurids, known for their extremely long necks, which would measure up to half their body length.

Most sauropods, or long-necked dinosaurs, such as those depicted in the popular animated series, “The Land Before Time,” have necks that span only one third of their body length.

“Qijianglong is a cool animal. If you imagine a big animal that is half neck, you can see that evolution can do quite extraordinary things,” Tetsuto Miyashita, a PhD student at the University of Alberta, said in a press release.

The dinosaur is the youngest addition to the mamenchisaurid group, which is only found in Asia. The discovery suggests that there may be other species of long-necks within the genus from different continents.

“Qijianglong shows that long-necked dinosaurs diversified in unique ways in Asia during Jurassic times — something very special was going on in that continent,” said Miyashita.