New discovery on dinosaur fossils from Early Jurassic, Sichuan, China

An early and primitive sauropod dinosaur, Gongxianosaurus shibeiensis (gen. et sp. nov.), from Lower Jurassic Dongyuemiao Member of Ziliujing Formation in Shibei Village, Gongxian County, Sichuan Province, China is described, which is among Gongxian dinosaur fossils discovered in 1997. Except for skull incomplete, fossils were well-preserved. It has concurrently some features of both sauropod and prosauropds. It is an intermediate type of evolution from prosauropod to sauropod, provides practical materials for studying of origin and evolution of sauropod dinosaur fauna, and a favourable way for stratigraphic correlation between Early Jurassic Ziliujing Formation and Lower Lufeng Formation, in the Sichuan Basin and the Central Yunnan Basin that lies to its southwest.