Hexinlusaurus

Hexinlusaurus is a genus of basal ornithischian dinosaur from the Middle Jurassic (Bajocian stage) Lower Shaximiao Formation of what is now China. The type and only species is Hexinlusaurus multidens.

==Discovery== thumb|left|Skeletal restoration 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.