干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

Amongst the fossil material collected by the Sino-Soviet Expeditions (1959-1960) to the Alshan Desert, China, was a large, virtually complete ankylosaur skeleton. Gobisaurus domoculus gen. et sp. nov. closely resembles Shamosaurus scutatus, but is distinct in having an unfused basipterygoid-pterygoid contact and elongate premaxillary processes of the vomers. Although it is difficult to make a definitive taxonomic assignment without considering postcranial material, a preliminary phylogenetic analysis places Gobisaurus as the sister taxon of Shamosaurus, clustered as one of several successive outgroups of the Ankylosaurinae.