China is one of fames as digging a mass of dinosaur fossils. The largest dinosaur species was found in Henan province. Back in the fall of 2006, Jia Songhai, director of the paleontology research department of the Henan Provincial Geological Museum, was digging for dinosaur fossils in Shaping village, Ruyang County. Then a villager said, “There are fossil-like stones in a ditch to the west of the village.”

While Jia Songhai heard that, he immediately organized manpower go to the ditch at the west end of the village. They really saw the strange stone on the ground. A worker tried to dig several times, saying that it was a tree stake, but Jia Songhai did not see it that way, he directed the workers to continue to dig down. And the result was a femur fossil more than 1 meter high. It was the first time such a large fossil had been found, so they dug around further and found more fossils.

In 2009, the departed paleontologist Lu Junchang and his colleagues studied fossils found in Shaping village, Ruyang County, and named it Ruyangosaurus. The genus name is from Ruyang County, and the species name is Ruyangosaurus Giant. Since the word “Giant” is in the name, how big was Ruyangosaurus? It was originally reported to be 38.1 meters long, 6 meters tall at the shoulder and weighing more than 100 tons, making it one of the largest dinosaurs ever discovered.

In fact, when Ruyangosaurus was named, its fossils were not all dug up. After more than two years of excavation, paleontologists got at least two Ruyangosaurus fossils. The largest fossil included nine cervical vertebrae missing most of the vertebrae, 13 mostly intact dorsal vertebrae, and a complete dorsal sacra vertebrae. Complete sacral and intestinal bones, 5 midcaudal vertebrae, a posterior cervical rib and anterior dorsal rib, as well as scapulocoracoid, femur, tibia, etc. This also makes Ruyangosaurus the most complete giant sauropod dinosaur found in the world.

It is on the basis of relatively complete fossils that paleontologists have re-estimated the size of Ruyangsaurus. Although there are some conservative estimates, they basically agree that Ruyangosaurus was more than 35 meters long and weighed between 60 and 80 tons. Considering that the Mamenchisaurus size had been severely shrunk not long ago, Ruyangosaurus was firmly seated on the throne of “China’s first giant dinosaur”. And the largest dinosaur in Asia!

Ruyangosaurus lived in the early Cretaceous period about 120 million years ago. And the sauropoda dinosaurs that have been found living with it include the Huangheosaurus, Yunmengsaurus, Xianshanosaurus, which belong to Ankylosauria. Unfortunately, no large carnivorous dinosaur contemporaneous with Ruyangsaurus has yet been found.

Our story with the Ruyangosaurus:

As early as 2016, Xixia Dinosaur Park (a theme park created by Henan Cultural Tourism Group) came to us and wanted to restore a 1:1 sized animatronic Ruyangosaurus model and place it in the park. The theme park is also close to the Henan Provincial Geological Museum, and with the oversized Ruyangosaurus model as a popular facility, it can attract more tourists to visit.

Of course, we were happy to be given such an assignment. Building a 30-meter-long Ruyangosaurus model is not easy at all! We dispatched more than a dozen technical workers to concentrate on this model project, and it took nearly a month to complete this large animatronic dinosaur exhibit.

In order to make this large dinosaur model, we rented the crane for three days; 15 sets of scaffolding were leased and used for more than 20 days; The amount of silicone, gasoline, oil paints, sponges were spent.

Giant Animatronic Ruyangosaurus Video:

Potential customers who need large animatronic dinosaurs are welcome to contact us to get a price.