Dinosaur fossils & 3D skeletons › Mamenchisaurus
Mamenchisaurus Fossil & 3D Skeleton
Mamenchisaurus hochuanensis
- Age
- Jurassic, about 164.8 million years ago
- Found in
- China
- Length
- 18.1 m
- Height
- 6.6 m
- Estimated mass
- about 14.8 t
- Group
- Sauropods (Other)
How this 3D skeleton was made
This 3D model is a reconstruction. Most bone shapes (193 of 194) are borrowed from close relatives and fitted to this species' size and body proportions. The bone shapes are not the actual shapes of this species' fossils. 1 are estimated.
From this species 0Borrowed from relatives 193Estimated 1
Bones known from fossils
183 of 194 bones are known from fossils. 11 are missing and filled in.
Known 183Filled in 11No record 0
Tap a bone on the 3D page to see where each bone shape came from.
Sources
- 3D Skeleton: Borrowed bone shapes from the template "Spinophorosaurus" (S2). The lengths of 10 body parts (head, neck, trunk, tail, humerus, forearm, hand, thigh, shin, and foot) were scaled individually to match actual measurements from the 3D skeleton model of Mamenchisaurus (specimen ZDM 0126) in Dempsey et al. (2025) Biol Rev doi:10.1111/brv.70026 (CC BY 4.0). Individual bone shapes belong to the template species, not this one. Features unique to the template species (tail spikes) were removed. Source of template skeleton: 3D Skeleton: Created on this site. Bone shapes were traced from contours of fossil photographs of the holotype (GCP-CV-4229/NMB-1699-R) and paratype (NMB-1698-R) (Remes et al. 2009 PLoS ONE, CC BY), and lengths were scaled to Tables 1 and 2 of the same paper. Bones without photos (ilium, ribs, chevrons) and missing bones (forefoot tips, feet, face, and lower jaw) were estimated. The posture was based on the skeletal reconstruction in Figure 5 of the paper Pose (2026-09-30): Approximate angles read visually from Figure 10 (gait simulation frame of Argentinosaurus, 0.000 s) in Sellers et al. 2013 PLOS ONE (CC BY) (hind limbs: front-stepping leg thigh 18° forward, shin 24° backward; rear-stepping leg thigh 6° backward, shin 39° backward / forelimbs: grounded leg humerus 33° backward, forearm 28° forward; lifted swinging leg humerus 39° backward, forearm 3° backward). Orientations of the manus and pes are estimated. All sauropods share this walking gait (species-specific simulations are unavailable). Rather than a walking diagram of this species itself, bone angles were taken from a relative that walked the same way. The neck was turned slightly sideways, and the tail was curved laterally (deflection amounts are estimated; the diagram was lateral-only).
- Known bones: Sauropodomorph bone table from Cashmore et al. (2020) (the maximum value for each bone across 7 specimens, scored as preserved proportion 0–1). Any bone preserved even slightly is colored as "known". Because vertebrae are given as proportions by region (neck, back, hips, and tail), the bones within each region share the same color.
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