Fossilised armoured dinosaur resembling a prickly rhino and on a vegetarian diet is discovered in China

A new species of armoured dinosaur resembling a giant armadillo or a prickly rhino, which roamed the plains of China 190 million years ago, has been discovered by scientists.

A partial skeleton of Yuxisaurus kopchicki was uncovered in Yunnan province in the south-west of the country.

Measuring up to three metres in length and walking on four legs, the vegetarian dinosaur is thought to have foraged at ground level for plants such as ferns, cycads, and horsetails.

It was covered in spiky armoured plates – which would protect it from predators – giving an appearance similar to a huge armadillo or a spiky rhinoceros, according to Professor Paul Barrett, a palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum who described the new species alongside Chinese researchers.

“It’s quite a chunky, stockily built animal,” Prof Barrett toldi. “This would have been something that would have been quite difficult for predators to deal with. It’s low to the ground, it’s got very strong limb bones, and it’s covered in armour.”

The discovery, published today in the journal eLife, sheds new light on the evolution of armoured dinosaurs. Yuxisaurus kopchicki would have lived 174-192 million years ago in the Early Jurassic period, making it a predecessor of iconic armoured species such as the stegosaurus.

It is earliest well-preserved armoured dinosaur found in Asia to date and confirms that this group spread rapidly around the world and lived in a wide variety of habitats.

“We know a lot about the very elaborately armoured dinosaurs from later in the time of dinosaurs, but how they got to be the way they were is still slightly mysterious,” Professor Barrett said. “This new find from China helps to plug that gap.”

Another species, Scelidosaurus, which lived in the UK at about the same time as Yuxisaurus kopchicki existed in China, may be a close relative, Professor Barrett suggested. Scelidosaurus grew to four metres in length, fed on low, scrubby plants, and was covered in bony spikes.

Only one partial skeleton of Yuxisaurus kopchicki has been found so far. It is believed to be an adult, and its sex is unknown, but scientists also cannot rule out the possibility that the skeleton is from an adolescent and that a fully grown Yuxisaurus kopchicki could have been much larger.

The hunt is now on for more Yuxisaurus kopchicki remains. Researchers need to collect more specimens before they can work out whether it lived in herds or was a solitary animal, how long it lived, and how it interacted with other dinosaurs.