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Monday I went to Maastricht (in the Netherlands) to see some Chinese dinosaurs. For the time being (9 February 2008 - 27 April 2008) four giant, original dinosaur skeletons from the collections of the Beijing Natural History History Museum are on display in Western Europe for the very first time. I am by no means a dino fanatical, but they are intriguing beasts after all. The four main attractions were indeed Mamenchisaurus jingyanensis, Yangchuanosaurus shangyouensis, Lufengosaurus huenei, and Tsintaosaurus spinorhinus, but there were other interesting items as well, such as dinosaur eggs and a dinosaur nest plus a Psittacosaurus (of ONLY one metre length and a weight of around 20 kg).

Here I shall concentrate on the Tsintaosaurus. It seems appropriate to me because Maastricht gave name to the Maastrichtian, the last stage of the Cretaceous period, and therefore of the Mesozoic era (the era of the Dinosaurs). It spanned from 70.6 ± 0.6 to 65.5 ± 0.3 million years ago. The age of the Tsintaosaurus is about 80 million years, and thereby late Cretaceous.

Tsintaosaurus is a genus of hadrosaurid dinosaur from China. This specimen is 8 m long and weighs 3 tons. Tsintaosaurus spinorhinus is the type species and was first described by Young Chung Chien in 1958.

Tsintaosaurus is one of the more interesting looking hadrosaurs. The hadrosaurs are known as the duck-billed dinosaurs due to the similarity of their head to that of modern ducks. This is better seen on the nice reconstruction shown on this page. These plant-eating dinosaurs had toothless beaks, strong jaws and a massive battery of grinding teeth that would have let them efficiently eat tough foliage. It could have easily eaten pine needles. It's teeth were self-sharpening. Like other lambeosaurines, Tsintaosaurus had a species-specific crest or horn adorning its head. In this case, there had been controversy over whether or not Tsintaosaurus' unicorn-like horn was actually just a misplaced nasal bone. The discovery of other specimens with the bone in the same position seems to confirm that it was in fact a horn. No one is sure of the exact shape of the horn that developed around the fossilised bone. It may have been fat or thin. Some scientist have speculated that it had a sail, but there is no proof of that theory. No one knows what the horn was used for. It may have provided a visual signal in combat or courtship; it may have been used to make sounds, or it may even have enhanced its sense of smell. Because the horn was projecting forward, unlike a crest it is often being called, "the Unicorn Dinosaur". Tsintaosaurus spinorhinus had four-fingered hands. It lived in lakes.

Tsintaosaurus was named after the city of Tsingtao in Shandong Province, where the fossil was found. The species name spinorhinus refers to the spine-like crest on its head. Tsintaosaurus may be the same as Tanius (which was named earlier and therefore retains its name), which was a crestless Hadrosaurid from China. Tanius was named by Carl Wiman in 1929.

• http://www.nhmmaastricht.nl/engels/exposities/china_dino/index.html
• http://www.dinosaur-world.com/weird_dinosaurs/tsintaosaurus_spinorhinus.htm
• http://www.amonline.net.au/chinese_dinosaurs/factsheets/08.htm
• http://www.azhdarcho.com/Art/Paleoart/tsintaosaurus.htm
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsintaosaurus