Marine reptiles, Guizhou, China
Keichousaurus skeleton
Keichousaurus hui
The animal lies as it settled to the floor of a Triassic sea.
1 500 000 ₽ · In stock — Gimenei shopping centre
- Epoch
- Triassic period
- Age
- ≈ 245 Mya
- Origin
- Guizhou, China
- Size
- 27.5 × 35.4 × 1.3 cm
- Classification
- Marine reptiles (Keichousaurus)
- Habitat
- The warm shallows of Triassic China
- Ref.
- R–0292
Keichousaurus was a small marine reptile of the Triassic period, about thirty cm long. A long neck, paddle limbs, a long tail: it did not come ashore and spent its whole life in a warm shallow sea.
Skeletons of Keichousaurus are found in the marine limestones of Guizhou province in southern China — from its old spelling, Kweichow, the genus took its name.
The limestone in which these skeletons lie accumulated layer by layer on the floor of a calm sea. The sediment settled quickly and gently, so the bones did not scatter — the articulation is preserved, a rarity among marine finds.