Saichania

Name: Saichania

Pronounced: Sie-chan-ee-ah

Meaning: Beautiful one

Type: Armoured Dinosaur

Length: 6.6 meters long

Diet: Herbivore

Period: Late Cretaceous

Years: 80 million years ago

Location: Mongolia

Description: Saichania is a genus of herbivorous ankylosaurid dinosaur that lived during the Late Cretaceous period, about 70-66 million years ago. It was a small to medium-sized ankylosaurid, with a body length of about 5-6 meters (16-20 feet) and a weight of about 1-2 metric tons. Saichania is known from incomplete fossil remains found in Mongolia and China. Like other ankylosaurids, Saichania was heavily armored and had a robust, low-slung body with a club-like tail. It had a bony 'crown' or ridge on its head and a series of bony plates and spines running along its spine and tail. It probably used its armor for protection against predators, as well as for display and territorial behavior. Saichania may have also used its tail club as a weapon against predators or as a means of defense. Saichania is considered a basal ankylosaurid, meaning that it is one of the earliest and most primitive members of the group. It is thought to have evolved in the early stages of the radiation of ankylosaurids, before the evolution of more advanced ankylosaurid groups like the nodosaurids and ankylosaurines.

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