A mostly complete stegosaur with skin from Cretaceous north China (and a ceratopsian)

[Faelrin]

Nearly every article I've found calls them both Stegosaurus and Ceratosaurus. So take that with a grain of salt. Possibly from poor translations, or something.

A quick rundown of info from the various websites I've gathered:

The ceratopsian was found in or near Jiecaigou, Chengde, Hebei province about 130 ma, and is about 1 meter in length. Some articles also state that this is a ceratosaur, which is probably a case of poor translation. I'm guessing the ceraptosian translation might be the more accurate one considering the size, and some of the descriptions of it in some of the articles, which includes "bipedal with a little headdress structure," and "had relatively smaller body sizes and simpler body structures. For example, they didn't have the distinctive shieldlike structures on the head that are commonly seen in their descendants", and one article even outright called it a primitive ancestor of Triceratops. It was also described as being bipedal in one of the articles.

The stegosaur is about 5 meters in length, and was also found in the Hebei province. The stegosaur is preserved with a substantial amount of skin. Both were found in 2017. The stegosaur appears to have only plate (either didn't preserve with them or weirdly only had one set). The thagmoizer spikes are also rather large too.
 
Here's some links:

https://english.news.cn/20231121/ce7993b42e294e24b5b5e9992d28efa6/c.html
https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/complete-stegosaurus-fossil-found-with-skin-still-on-in-northern-china/
https://www.chinadailyhk.com/article/350704?showpdf=true

Here's a bunch of images from this below twitter source:

https://twitter.com/ChinaScience/status/1701521033289933182







The ceratopsian:



Another view of it from one of the articles:



Another image of the stegosaur from one of the many articles out there on it:

[ceratopsian]

Ah yes - I remember seeing that come up in the China Daily.

[Sim]

The stegosaurian is amazing!

[Halichoeres]

Holy cow that's gorgeous.

[Perotorum]

We are getting an almost inordinant( but not unwelcomed) amount of stegosaur news this year.

[DinoToyForum]

Amazing. Given the preservation of the stegosaur, fully articulated with skin and all, you'd have to conclude it really was a species with only one plate. Unless I'm missing something I can't think of any realistic pre- or postmortem scenario that would lead to the loss of all but one plate while leaving every other part of the skeleton including soft tissues intact.

And is that gastroliths I see in the stomach region?

I can't wait to find out more about this specimen!

[Sim]

I would be surprised if the stegosaurian had only one plate in life.  What about if it died in water, and the current dislodged most of the plates?

I also notice this stegosaurian's plate looks like the plates of Wuerhosaurus which were claimed to be broken.  To me it seems more likely the plates of Wuerhosaurus aren't broken, which could be supported by this new stegosaurian.

[DinoToyForum]

I would be surprised if the stegosaurian had only one plate in life.  What about if it died in water, and the current dislodged most of the plates?

I'm surprised too! But the specimen is telling a clear taphonomic story, one of rapid burial in a low energy environment leading to exceptional preservation. The sorts of forces required to dislodge embedded plates from the skin would do a lot of other damage. One possible scenario is if it was mostly buried with only the plates exposed. But even in that unlikely scenario, I don't think it's realistic that all but one plate would be disunited from the corpse. Strong currents would erode the soft sediment and expose the rest of the skeleton.

[Quiversaurus]

Thank you for the photos and the news, @Faelrin . I was so excited to see such a complete skeleton, and even more so with much skin preserved. To think that it was unearthed in 2017, and we're only seeing this now. Reminds me of what Dr Maidment said in one of her lectures about there being many undescribed fossils (of stegosaurs) still, that have yet to be or are still being studied.

This one plate business I find rather humorous, imagine this guy roaming around with just the one plate amongst his fully plated brethren, looking like a herbivorous Concavenator...

[Faelrin]

@Quiversaurus Hmm, I wonder if there will be a counterpart herbivore to fill in the missing spots, like how Concavenator's hump jokingly fits in the gap of Ichthyovenator, lol.

Also I totally forgot to mention the whole reason I found out about this today and had to share it, was through aquariumaster's wonderful artwork of the stegosaur on instagram. Please go check his art out.

https://www.instagram.com/p/C2-IyMJuibz/?img_index=1

[Halichoeres]

Hypothesis: dromaeosaurs pulled all the other plates off to use as frisbees.

[Quiversaurus]

@Quiversaurus Hmm, I wonder if there will be a counterpart herbivore to fill in the missing spots, like how Concavenator's hump jokingly fits in the gap of Ichthyovenator, lol.

Also I totally forgot to mention the whole reason I found out about this today and had to share it, was through aquariumaster's wonderful artwork of the stegosaur on instagram. Please go check his art out.

https://www.instagram.com/p/C2-IyMJuibz/?img_index=1

This would be hilarious. Someone should make some art about this - the Concavenator/Ichthyovenator one and this particular stegosaur

Thanks for linking the artwork and artist too!

[DinoToyForum]

Hypothesis: dromaeosaurs pulled all the other plates off to use as frisbees.

And Compsognathus took the small ones for surf boards?

[Sim]

@Quiversaurus Hmm, I wonder if there will be a counterpart herbivore to fill in the missing spots, like how Concavenator's hump jokingly fits in the gap of Ichthyovenator, lol.

Sophie the Stegosaurus is thought to be missing one plate roughly where this new stegosaurian's plate is preserved...  So I think it could fill the new stegosaurian's gaps while the latter could fill the gap in Sophie...

[Ikessauro]

I would be surprised if the stegosaurian had only one plate in life.  What about if it died in water, and the current dislodged most of the plates?

I'm surprised too! But the specimen is telling a clear taphonomic story, one of rapid burial in a low energy environment leading to exceptional preservation. The sorts of forces required to dislodge embedded plates from the skin would do a lot of other damage. One possible scenario is if it was mostly buried with only the plates exposed. But even in that unlikely scenario, I don't think it's realistic that all but one plate would be disunited from the corpse. Strong currents would erode the soft sediment and expose the rest of the skeleton.

Amazing. Given the preservation of the stegosaur, fully articulated with skin and all, you'd have to conclude it really was a species with only one plate. Unless I'm missing something I can't think of any realistic pre- or postmortem scenario that would lead to the loss of all but one plate while leaving every other part of the skeleton including soft tissues intact.

And is that gastroliths I see in the stomach region?

I can't wait to find out more about this specimen!

Also, something to consider. Wouldn't it be possible for this to be a "abnormal" animal? Like, some species of stegosaur that usually has plates, but this one was born with a mutation that made it develop only one plate. There are plenty of cases of animals being born with weird genetic mutations, from albine to melanistic, to two headed vertebrates and so on. Couldn't it be that maybe it had a disease that  made it lose the plates due to some nutrient deficiency, but was able to live a while plateless?

[Leyster]

Cleary all other plates were shed, exactly like you can see in Camp Cretaceous

Spoiler

This is sarcasm, in case it's not clear enough 

[close]

[DinoToyForum]

I would be surprised if the stegosaurian had only one plate in life.  What about if it died in water, and the current dislodged most of the plates?

I'm surprised too! But the specimen is telling a clear taphonomic story, one of rapid burial in a low energy environment leading to exceptional preservation. The sorts of forces required to dislodge embedded plates from the skin would do a lot of other damage. One possible scenario is if it was mostly buried with only the plates exposed. But even in that unlikely scenario, I don't think it's realistic that all but one plate would be disunited from the corpse. Strong currents would erode the soft sediment and expose the rest of the skeleton.

Amazing. Given the preservation of the stegosaur, fully articulated with skin and all, you'd have to conclude it really was a species with only one plate. Unless I'm missing something I can't think of any realistic pre- or postmortem scenario that would lead to the loss of all but one plate while leaving every other part of the skeleton including soft tissues intact.

And is that gastroliths I see in the stomach region?

I can't wait to find out more about this specimen!

Also, something to consider. Wouldn't it be possible for this to be a "abnormal" animal? Like, some species of stegosaur that usually has plates, but this one was born with a mutation that made it develop only one plate. There are plenty of cases of animals being born with weird genetic mutations, from albine to melanistic, to two headed vertebrates and so on. Couldn't it be that maybe it had a disease that  made it lose the plates due to some nutrient deficiency, but was able to live a while plateless?

That's possible. An unlikely scenario, but possible.

[DinoToyForum]

Cleary all other plates were shed, exactly like you can see in Camp Cretaceous

Spoiler

This is sarcasm, in case it's not clear enough 

[close]

Does that really happen in Camp Cretaceous? ( I haven't seen it).

[Leyster]

Cleary all other plates were shed, exactly like you can see in Camp Cretaceous

Spoiler

This is sarcasm, in case it's not clear enough 

[close]

Does that really happen in Camp Cretaceous? ( I haven't seen it).

Sadly, yes. They find an entire Stegosaurus plate and one of the characters mention Stegosaurus shedding them. As if they were deer antlers.

[Faelrin]

L @Leyster What episode was this from? I totally forgot about that lol.

@Ikessauro A good possibility even if very rare. I mean there is that 2 headed polycephalic Hyphalosaurus specimen. All the more reason we need to wait for a publication or perhaps even more specimens to clear this up. I hope they give it a fun name since of its unique condition.

@Sim Good catch on that. I hope someone does art of that someday lol.