Yangchuanosaurus to appear on Chinese Dinosaur Stamps

File photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn

The collection will debut on May 19 and includes seven types of dinosaurs: Yangchuanosaurus, Tsintaosaurus Spinorhinus, Huayangosaurus, Gigantoraptor, Microraptor, Sinosauropteryx and Mamenchisaurus Hochuanensis.

Yangchuanosaurus got its name after it was discovered in Yongchuan district, Chongqing, in 1976. It is famous for its giant teeth, rapid speed and ferocious temperament.

This dinosaur lived in China during the Bathonian and Callovian stages of the Middle Jurassic, and was similar in size and appearance to its North American relative, the Allosaurus.

During a thunderstorm in June 1976, Lyu Xiangzhi, deputy commander of a local reservoir, was on his way to check a dam with his colleague when they stumbled upon a white object exposed from a rock. It was very hard and looked similar to an animal bone.

Later, an expert identified the fossil to be a carnivorous dinosaur head with well-preserved jaw teeth.

Wang Dayu, who is in his 50s and lives in Yongchuan, was deeply impressed by this huge dinosaur fossil head when he saw it. "The skull was around a meter long, with a washbasin-big hole around its eyes," he recalled.

The local government conducted a large excavation project around where the fossil head was found. About 20 days later, a complete fossilized dinosaur was found.

According to experts, this fossil was of a large carnivorous dinosaur, the same type as the head found 20 days earlier. They determined further that the Yangchuanosaurus lived during the Jurassic Period, and was 800 cm long, 400 cm tall and 120 cm wide.

This Yangchuanosaurus fossil is now preserved at the Chongqing Natural History Museum, as a major treasure of the museum.