Tatisaurus is an extinct type of dinosaur that lived during the Early Jurassic period, specifically in a time called the Sinemurian. Its fossils were found in Yunnan Province, China.
The name Tatisaurus comes from the village of Da Di, which is written as “Ta Ti.” The specific name, T. oehleri, honors a man named Father Edgar Oehler, who discovered the first fossils of this dinosaur between 1948 and 1949.
Father Oehler was a Catholic priest and worked in Beijing. He found a jaw bone of a plant-eating dinosaur while excavating near Da Di. In 1965, a paleontologist named David Jay Simmons named this dinosaur. The remains that were found include a partial jaw with teeth. Unfortunately, the teeth are worn down, and only a small piece of the jaw, about six centimeters long, has been discovered. This is the only known specimen of Tatisaurus.
Initially, Simmons thought Tatisaurus was related to a group called Hypsilophodontidae, which he believed included early types of Ornithopoda dinosaurs. He suggested that Tatisaurus was linked to dinosaurs like Scelidosaurus and others in the Ankylosauria group.
Later, in 1990, another paleontologist named Dong Zhiming examined the fossils again and noticed they had features similar to another dinosaur called Huayangosaurus. He then placed both Tatisaurus and Huayangosaurus in a group together.
By 1996, Spencer Lucas classified Tatisaurus as a type of Scelidosaurus instead. However, this classification was questioned in 2007 by David B. Norman and his team, who stated that Tatisaurus was likely a very simple form of a group called thyreophorans, which included many armored dinosaurs.
Most recently, in 2019, researchers suggested that another dinosaur called Bienosaurus might actually be the same as Tatisaurus, meaning it’s not certain if Bienosaurus is a distinct species.
In summary, while we have some information about Tatisaurus, much about it remains unclear, and it is considered a small part of the diverse world of dinosaurs.