The
holotype (ZDM T6001, Zigong
Dinosaur Museum, Dashanpu,
People's Republic of China), consists of an almost complete, articulated skull and some
postcranial material, collected from a terrestrial
sandstone within the Lower
Shaximiao Formation (?
Bajocian) at the famous dinosaur-bearing quarries at Dashanpu. A paratype (ZDM T6002) consists of a partial skull and postcranial remains. Previously, it had been described as a
species of
Yandusaurus,
Y. multidens (He and Cai, 1983), but was reclassified as a new
taxon by Paul M. Barrett, Richard J. Butler and Fabien Knoll in
2005, who diagnosed this anatomically conservative species as follows: "A small ornithischian dinosaur distinguished from all other basal ornithischians by a single autapomorphy, the presence of a marked concavity that extends over the lateral surface of the postorbital." The
etymology of the genus name honors Professor He Xin-Lu (from the Chengdu University of Technology) who originally named the specimen as
Y. multidens + the
Greek sauros (=
lizard).
Hexinlusaurus was a small, fleet-footed
herbivore. Before being officially named
Hexinlusaurus, this genus was briefly known under the
informal name "Proyandusaurus". This name originally appeared in an abstract attributed to Fabien Knoll, which was apparently published in 1999 without his consent. Other dinosaurs known from Dashanpu include the sauropod
Shunosaurus, the theropod
Gasosaurus, and the stegosaur
Huayangosaurus. ==References==