Scientists have identified the first dinosaur fossil from a remote western section of the Bayan Gobi Formation in China’s Inner Mongolia, extending the known geographic range of dinosaur fossils in this important Early Cretaceous rock unit.
The 208GPV01 fossil from the Bayan Gobi Formation in the Yin’gen-Ejinaqi Basin, China. Image credit: Li et al., doi: 10.1016/j.hisbio.2026.100044.
The new dinosaur specimen was recovered unexpectedly during a copper mineral survey conducted by a team of Chinese geologists.
Cataloged as 208GPV01, the fossil was pulled from a drill core at a depth of 473 m (1,500 feet) near Guaizihu in the Yin’gen-Ejinaqi Basin.
“The Bayan Gobi Formation is an Early Cretaceous continental deposit in northern China, primarily exposed within the Yin’gen-Ejinaqi Basin of western Inner Mongolia,” said Dr. Lida Xing, a researcher at the China University of Geosciences and the Dinosaur Odyssey Science Museum, and colleagues.
“Its fauna shares similarities with that of the nearly contemporaneous Western Liaoning, suggesting that both may belong to the radiation range of the Jehol Biota, although some differences exist.”
The 208GPV01 fossil dates back roughly 115 million years to the Early Cretaceous epoch.
It consists mainly of proximal tail vertebrae along with several associated elements.
“208GPV01 comprises a sacral rib, four caudal vertebral centra, six caudal neural arches, several transverse processes, and ossified tendons,” the researchers said.
Model of Psittacosaurus sp. based on skin and pigmentation patterns on the specimen from the Senckenberg Museum, Germany. Image credit: Jakob Vinther et al.
The specimen, according to the scientists, belongs to Ornithischia, a group of plant-eating, bird-hipped dinosaurs.
To pin down the fossil’s closest relatives, they compared its proportions with those of numerous other ornithischian species using geometric morphometrics.
The analysis showed the specimen’s vertebral proportions most closely resemble those of Psittacosaurus, an early horned dinosaur species that was common across Cretaceous East Asia.
However, because the material is limited, they stopped short of assigning the fossil to a specific genus or species, and it has for now been classified only as an indeterminate ornithischian.
The Bayan Gobi Formation has previously yielded several notable dinosaurs, including the hadrosauroid Penelopognathus weishampeli, the ceratopsian Psittacosaurus sibiricus, and the alvarezsauroid Bannykus wulatensis.
But nearly all such finds have come from the eastern part of the Yin’gen-Ejinaqi Basin.
“208GPV01 is the first published dinosaur record from the Bayan Gobi Formation in the western Yin’gen-Ejinaqi Basin, thereby expanding the geographical range of dinosaur fossils in this horizon,” the authors said.
Their paper was published September 5, 2026 in the journal Earth History and Biodiversity.
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Tianyu Li et al. The First Dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous Bayan Gobi Formation in the Western Yin’gen-Ejinaqi Basin of Inner Mongolia, China. Earth History and Biodiversity, published online September 5, 2026; doi: 10.1016/j.hisbio.2026.100044
