{{Short description|Extinct genus of dinosaurs}} {{Speciesbox | fossil_range = Late Jurassic, {{Fossil range|160|157|earliest=161|latest=156}} | genus = Gongbusaurus | parent_authority = Dong, Zhou, & Zhang, 1983 | species = shiyii | authority = Dong, Zhou, & Zhang, 1983 | subdivision_ranks = Possible species | subdivision = * {{extinct}}''G. wucaiwanensis''? <small>Dong, 1989</small> | synonyms = * ''Eugongbusaurus''? <small>Knoll, 1999</small> }}
'''''Gongbusaurus''''' is a genus of ornithischian, perhaps ornithopod, dinosaur that lived between about 160 and 157 million years ago, in the Late Jurassic period. A small herbivore, it is very poorly known. Two species have been assigned to it, but as the original name is based on teeth, there is no concrete evidence to connect the two species. Its fossils have been found in China.
==Description== ''Gongbusaurus'', by extrapolation from the remains of possible species "G." ''wucaiwanensis'' and other basal ornithopods, was a herbivorous bipedal animal around {{convert|1.3|to|1.5|m|ft|sp=us}} long. The tibia of "G." ''wucaiwanensis'' is 19.5 centimetres long. It would have been a strong runner.<ref name=DZ89>{{cite journal|author=Dong Zhiming |authorlink=Dong Zhiming |year=1989 |title=On a small ornithopod (''Gongbusaurus wucaiwanensis'' sp. nov.) from Kelamaili, Junggar Basin, Xinjiang, China |journal=Vertebrata PalAsiatica |volume=27 |issue=2 |pages=140–146}}</ref>
==Classification== Dong Zhiming, Zhou Shiwu, and Zhang Zicheng, who originally described the type species ''G. shiyii'', thought it was most similar to ''Fabrosaurus'' and assigned it to the nebulous Fabrosauridae.<ref name=DZZ83>{{cite journal |author=Dong Zhiming |author2=Zhou Shiwu |author3= Zhang Zicheng |year=1983 |title=Dinosaurs from the Jurassic of Sichuan |journal=Palaeontologia Sinica, New Series C |volume=162 |issue=23 |pages=1–145 |language=Chinese}}</ref> Upon description of the second species "G." ''wucaiwanensis'' several years later, Dong elected to assign it to Hypsilophodontidae, an equally nebulous (paraphyletic) family of somewhat more derived small bipedal ornithischians,<ref name=DZ89/> while at about the same time, David B. Weishampel and Larry Witmer found ''Gongbusaurus'' to be an indeterminate basal ornithischian.<ref name=WW90>{{cite book |last=Weishampel |first=David B. |authorlink=David B. Weishampel |author2=Witmer, Lawrence M. |editor=Weishampel, David B. |editor2=Dodson, Peter |editor3=Osmólska Halszka|title=The Dinosauria |edition=1st |year=1990 |publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley |isbn=978-0-520-06727-1 |pages=416–425 |chapter=''Lesothosaurus'', ''Pisanosaurus'', and ''Technosaurus''}}</ref> The most recent reviews also found the genus to be a dubious ornithischian,<ref name=NWW04>{{cite book |last=Norman |first=David B. |authorlink=David B. Norman |author2=Witmer, Larry M. |author3= Weishampel, David B. |editor=Weishampel, David B. |editor2=Dodson, Peter |editor3=Osmólska, Halszka|title=The Dinosauria |edition=2nd |year= 2004 |publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley |isbn=978-0-520-24209-8 |pages=325–334 |chapter=Basal Ornithischia}}</ref> and recommended renaming the better-known second species.<ref name=NSWC04>{{cite book |last=Norman |first=David B. |authorlink=David B. Norman |author2=Sues, Hans-Dieter |author3=Witmer, Larry M. |author4= Coria, Rodolfo A. |editor=Weishampel, David B. |editor2=Dodson, Peter |editor3=Osmólska Halszka|title=The Dinosauria |edition=2nd |year= 2004|publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley |isbn=978-0-520-24209-8 |pages=393–412 |chapter=Basal Ornithopoda}}</ref> Peter Galton has noted that the teeth on which ''Gongbusaurus'' is based resemble those of ''Sarcolestes'' and ''Gastonia'', so the genus may actually be an ankylosaurian.<ref name=PMG06>{{cite book |last=Galton |first=Peter M. |authorlink=Peter Galton |year=2006 |chapter=Teeth of ornithischian dinosaurs (mostly Ornithopoda) from the Morrison Formation (Upper Jurassic) of the western United States |editor=Carpenter Kenneth|title=Horns and Beaks: Ceratopsian and Ornithopod Dinosaurs |publisher=Indiana University Press |location=Bloomington and Indianapolis |pages=17–47 |isbn=978-0-253-34817-3 }}</ref>
==History== thumb|250px|left|"Gongbusaurus" ''wucaiwanensis'' ("Eugongbusaurus") skull IVPP 14559 Dong and his coauthors established ''Gongbusaurus'' on two small teeth, holotype IVPP V9069: one, V9069-1, from the beak (premaxilla), and the other, V9069-2, from the cheek (maxilla). These remains came from the Oxfordian-age Upper Shaximiao Formation in Sichuan, China and were found by a unit of the Chinese aerial survey behind an elementary school in the village of Huangtong, part of the Duxin commune, in Rongxian or Rong County. The type species ''Gongbusaurus shiyii'' was named and described by Dong, Zhou, and Zhang in 1983. The generic name is derived from the imperial ministry, ''bu'', of public works, ''gong'', in honour of the great poet Du Fu who in Sichuan worked for that ministry after 760, in the rank of ''shi yi'', "junior consultant", which explains the specific name. As ''shi yi'' also can mean "register of lost objects" the specific name is at the same time a pun on the fact that the teeth were later separately found among the assorted bones collected during the dig.<ref name=DZZ83/> Dong added a second species, "G." ''wucaiwanensis'', in 1989 for a fragmentary skeleton (holotype IVPP 8302) including a partial lower jaw, three tail vertebrae, and a partial forelimb, and added another specimen (paratype IVPP 8303) consisting of two hip vertebrae, eight tail vertebrae, and two complete hind limbs. A partial foot (IVPP 8304) and four separate dorsal vertebrae and a caudal vertebra were referred. These remains came from the roughly contemporaneous Shishugou Formation of Wucaiwan, Xinjiang.<ref name=DZ89/>
Tooth species are not well regarded in dinosaur paleontology, because dinosaur teeth are generally not distinctive enough to hold a name. Therefore, it is unsurprising that other paleontologists have suggested removing "G." ''wucaiwanensis''.<ref name=NSWC04/> A possible replacement name, "Eugongbusaurus",<ref name=FK99>{{cite book |last=Knoll |first=Fabien |year=1999 |chapter=The family Fabrosauridae |editor=Canudo, J.I. |editor2=Cuenca-Bescós, G.|title=IV European Workshop on Vertebrate Palaeontology, Albarracin (Teruel, Spain), junio de 1999. Programme and Abstracts, Field guide |publisher=Servicio Publicaciones Universidad de Zaragoza |page=54}}</ref> has accidentally gotten to the public, but remains informal.
==References== {{Reflist}}
{{Ornithischia}} {{Taxonbar|from=Q1656761}}
Category:Ornithischia Category:Dinosaur genera Category:Oxfordian dinosaurs Category:Shaximiao Formation Category:Taxa named by Dong Zhiming Category:Fossil taxa described in 1983 Category:Dinosaurs of China Category:Tooth taxa