Complete Mounted Dinosaur. This 22 inch long important dinosaur Jeholosaurus is between 130-135 million years old from Central Asia, has over 80% real bone and has been professionally mounted in a life-like walking position. All of the small delicate bones have been micro-drilled with small rods inserted inside the bones to give a realistic 3D free standing specimen with the only visible rods being at the bottom of the feet. The bone quality is excellent with the only restoration done on the ribs and some of the small neural spines along the back and tail. The important 2.5 inch skull is complete with real teeth on both the upper and lower jaws on one side and several tips of teeth visible on the other side of the skull. There could be some more teeth under this other side but they may be obscured because the skull has shifted a little bit to one side. The eye of the skull is huge being one inch in diameter and even though this specimen is a juvenile, it probably indicates that Jeholosaurus was a nocturnal dinosaur that hunted insects at night. The large back legs with large feet show that Jeholosaurus was a very fast running dinosaur. It was bipedal and the fingers on the hands are displayed in a natural curved postion with sharp little claws which they may have used to dig in the ground for insects.
Jeholosaurus belongs to a little know taxa of dinosaurs know as Heterodontosauridae. These small supposedly plant eating dinosaurs are very eary Ornithipods and are little understood because so few of them have been discovered. Just recently a slightly older but similar Heterodontosauridae known as Tianyulong was found in Liaoning, China as is important as it was clearly feathered with short small feathers. This means that its slightly later ancestor Jeholosaurus would also have been feathered. This is extremely important as no Ornithipod or plant eating dinosaur had ever been found that had feathers. Only some theropod, meat eating dinosaurs have been found to have feathers. Thus, Jeholosaurus is a missing link animal that bridges the feather gap of Ornithipod and Theropod dinosaurs. Jehosaurus is from the early Cretaceous of over 130 million years ago and was found in the tuffaceous volcanic sandstone of the lower Yixian formation in Liaoning Province of Central Asia. Even the teeth of Jeholosaurus look like a cross between a meat eating and plant eating dinosaur with sharp pointed teeth in the front of the jaw and flat teeth in the rest of the jaw like a plant eating dinosaur. Perhaps they were omnivores eating both plants and insects and possibly small lizards.
This 22 inch long 11 inch high juvenile Jeholosaurus has been mounted on a 10.5 x 4 inch wooden base for display and a glass or acrylic clear case can be easily obtained for display if desired. The dinosaur comes apart in seven pieces for easy transportation and examination. The skull can be easily taken on and off for study. This is an important opportunity to buy a complete dinosaur at a reasonable price as very few collectors can ever hope to own a real complete dinosaur without paying hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Add $125 for domestic shipping.
Estimated Value $14,000 - 18,000.
Fossils
