biology

Taohelong

Taohelong is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Taohelong rather than just read about it. In short: Taohelong is a genus of nodosaurid dinosaur known from Early Cretaceous rocks in north-central China. It is based on Gansu Dinosaur Museum (GSDM) 00021, fossils including a tail vertebra, ribs, a left ilium (the main bone of the hip), and bony armor recovered from the Hekou Group in the Lanzhou-Minhe Basin.

Key takeaways

Taohelong belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Taohelong to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Taohelong from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Taohelong is a genus of nodosaurid dinosaur known from Early Cretaceous rocks in north-central China. It is based on Gansu Dinosaur Museum (GSDM) 00021, fossils including a tail vertebra, ribs, a left ilium (the main bone of the hip), and bony armor recovered from the Hekou Group in the Lanzhou-Minhe Basin. The animal's armor includes part of a "sacral shield", a carpet of osteoderms over the hips found in some other ankylosaurians. Taohelong was named and described in 2013 by Yang Jing-Tao, You Hai-Lu, Li Da-Qing, and Kong De-Lai. The type species is Taohelong jinchengensis. The generic name means "dragon (long) of the river (he) Tao". The specific name refers to the provenance at Jincheng. The describers established some diagnostic traits. The neural channel of the tail vertebra has a cross-section like an inverted trapezium. In top view the profile of the outer rim of the ilium is like a mirrored "S". The osteoderms of the sacral shield are irregular in both shape and size. Taohelong was placed in the Nodosauridae, more precisely in the Polacanthinae. Yang et al. performed a phylogenetic analysis and found Taohelong to be the sister taxon to Polacanthus foxii, making it the first polacanthine to be described from Asia.

Discovery and naming The only known fossil of Taohelong was found in the Lanzhou-Minhe Basin near the border of Yongjing and Lintao counties by the Gansu Zhendan Dinosaur Culture Communication Company. After collection and preparation, it was given to the Gansu Dinosaur Museum as specimen GSDM 00021; preserving a middle caudal vertebra, ribs, a left ilium, and multiple pieces of armor. GSDM 00021 was described in 2013 by paleontologists Yang Jingtao, You Hailu, Li Daqing, and Kong Delai where it was designated the holotype of the new taxon of ankylosaur Taohelong jinchengensis. The genus name is taken from the Tao River that flows through the fossil deposits, while the species name is after the ancient name of Lanzhou, Jincheng, which also translates as "solid" in reference to the armor over the back of the animal. The deposits Taohelong was found within pertain to the Lower Cretaceous Hekou Group, which can be informally divided into eight subunits in the region. Sediments are red clastic rocks and mudstones dominated by lakebed sediments, with Taohelong itself coming from a thin brown-red mudstone sandwiched between a small amount of grey silty mudstone from an ancient lakeshore. A sauropod, distinct from Huanghetitan and Daxiatitan that are known from elsewhere in the Hekou Group of Lanzhoue-Minhe Basin, was found 200 m (660 ft) away.

Classification Taohelong was initially regarded as the first member of the ankylosaur group Polacanthinae to have been found in Asia, with Yang and colleagues reconstructing it as the closest relative of Polacanthus from the Barremian of the United Kingdom. United by the angle of the anterior process of the ilium, Taohelong and Polacanthus were also reconstructed as successively more distantly related to Peloroplites, Gastonia burgei, Gargoyleosaurus and Hoplitosaurus, all of which are from the Early Cretaceous or Late Jurassic of North America.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Taohelong

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Taohelong claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Taohelong before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Taohelong ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Taohelong

In research: Taohelong appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Taohelong in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Taohelong is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Albian dinosaurs, Dinosaur genera, Dinosaurs of China, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Taohelong outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Taohelong in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Taohelong means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Taohelong out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Taohelong in simple terms?

Why does Taohelong matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Taohelong?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Taohelong.